Dimensions
by Jaelijn
Summary: For ten years, Rimmer has been living the life of Ace. It hasn't been an easy ride, and still things get worse. As Simulants mess with dimensions, Rimmer's ship become badly damaged, and he unexpectedly finds himself back where he started out - in his home dimension, with Red Dwarf not far away...
1. Ace Rimmer

**A/N: **Welcome! I'm happy to finally be able to share this and I hope you will enjoy it!

A few words upfront:

This fic grew out of eight lines of dialogue that just popped into my head into a multi-chaptered story bridging the gap between series 8 and BTE. There are therefore no direct reference to series 10, but I have seen it and taken it into account - especially considering that we more or less have official confirmation that the hologram-Rimmer of BTE and series 10 is the one who left to become Ace. I'm aware that this has been done before, but I hope I will be able to offer my own original take on it and that you will enjoy it, of course. Oh, and while I take the name of Ace's ship from the novels, I am basing the story entirely on what we have seen in the series and ignoring the novelisations (particularly where they contradict each other).

Also, this story does have an actual plot, but it is also very much a character study for Rimmer. This has resulted in me slightly adapting the way Ace is represented (particularly since my first reaction to him was almost identical to Rimmer's). You will know what I mean after the first chapter, and even if you don't agree with me I hope you will enjoy the story for what it is - a tribute to plain old Arnold J. Rimmer.

**Disclaimer: **Copyright with Grant Naylor Productions. No infringement intended.

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><p><strong>Dimensions<strong>

by

Jaelijn

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><p><em>Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.<em>

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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><p><strong>I. Ace Rimmer<strong>

The _Wildfire_'s computer calmly matched the sound of her ventilation unit to the soft – and unnecessary – breathing of the ship's sleeping occupant, settling in for a night of relaxation. She didn't need to sleep, of course, but she still enjoyed the downtime – it was something Arnold had taught her. Not Ace – not the first Ace, anyway. Oh, she had been young then! Young and foolish, completely smitten with her first and only pilot, right amongst the ranks of the '_What a guy!_'s. She had been infatuated with him, so deeply that she never knew it wasn't love. And then Ace had died, and the first Arnold Rimmer had replaced him. Then, she had finally seen Ace for what he really was. Had finally seen all the things he had always hidden from her – the torture he had suffered as a child from his brothers, his parents. The boiling deep anger and insecurity. The ego so puffed up that he had buried it under a smeg-load of humility to turn it into self-confidence. The lack of true connections, the social awkwardness he had covered up with superficiality. The sexual attraction he abused shamelessly. She had finally seen Ace for the pompous, puffed-up git he had been.

At the same time, however, she had realised that the multiverse needed someone like Ace. Needed a hero who was too good to be true to fight evil that would have no match without him. A daredevil who would rush even into the pits of hell to save the innocent, who would stare down a Simulant and not even bat an eyelash. Because, in his own way, Ace had been a force for good saving millions of lives. She later learned that Ace only passed his legacy on because he felt sorry for his alternate selfs – because he could identify. He had thought that by leaving them this legacy, by giving them the opportunity to become Ace, he was doing them a favour. Making them better. The _Wildfire _was no longer sure if he was right, but, back then, she had supported his decision.

The first Arnold was still fairly close to the original. He had managed to become a pilot, but had still ended up bunking with a Lister who was just as mean, just as nasty to him as his brothers had ever been. Rimmer had fought back in the only way he knew when his sex-appeal would not work – with sarcasm. In a way, his relationship with Lister was far closer, far healthier than the superficial admiration-friendship Ace had shared with Spanners. That Arnold had been successful, but damaged. He still became a damn good Ace, flourishing in the new role with no Lister to drag him back down. By the time he died, he had _been _Ace. And afterwards, the _Wildfire _had begun to think that something, somewhere was lost whenever an Arnold embraced the role, whenever an Arnold disappeared and she was once again flying with Ace. She had always felt a thrill of excitement when the change occurred, the joy of freedom, of not being bogged down by the various struggles and neuroses that came with Arnold J. Rimmer, but the feeling had become ambivalent, and more and more so as time went on. Hundreds, thousands of Aces later, she had accepted it as an inevitability. All these Rimmers, laying down their lives for the greater good, some only lasting a few weeks, others flying with her for months, years – they all eventually embraced the role, enjoyed it, became someone else and, instead of healing their neuroses, left them behind, ran from them – because running away was always something a Rimmer did best. There was never any real growth. These Rimmers stepped into someone else's shoes and disappeared, shamelessly exploiting this persona. No one ever called them to their hypocrisy, because the only one who could, the only one who knew, was the _Wildfire_. And she, though she had come to love Arnold, with all the neuroses and mal-adjustments, and despise Ace as much as every Rimmer did when they first met their predecessor, knew that she could not risk challenging Ace. She could not risk him falling back into his cowardliness, his insecurity, his feeling of inadequacy – not if she wanted Ace's work to be successful, and she did. Because, in the end, it was for the greater good, and none of the Aces seemed to realise what they had lost.

The latest Ace had been different, a bit. He, though flourishing in the role of Ace, had never quite forgotten where he had come from. He, much closer to the Rimmer Ace had met on his first dimension jump, had been awestruck by the legacy thrust upon him, and though he embraced Ace as much as all before him, he always, again and again, had to prove to himself that he was worth it. He never took being Ace for granted. He never exploited his status as a hero. He never forgot who he had been, and what he had thought of Ace when he first met him. He had been a difficult Ace – prone to melancholy, and profoundly lonely, because he could not find solace in the countless women who threw himself at his feet. He was aware of the sacrifice, and the _Wildfire _had felt closer to him than to any of the other Aces before. When he was fatally wounded, she was devastated, and so she took him to the first dimension other than her own she had ever been.

Ace was once again replaced by Arnold. She had known this Rimmer was different when he had first stepped into her cockpit – maybe even as soon as his predecessor had transferred his role to him. This Rimmer was the flipside of the coin – only one single occurrence separated him from the original Ace, one single incident of his childhood had taken Ace down the path of success and smuggery, and had left this Rimmer with a self-loathing large enough to swallow a planet and a mess of neuroses that nearly short-circuited her psychology banks when she had taken over hosting his hologram from _Starbug_'s basic, personality-less computer. He bore his faults on his sleeve. True, he had tried to hide them behind a façade of sarcasm that was familiar to the _Wildfire _by now, and had pretended that he was the way he was by choice, when, in reality, all he wanted to do was change. His death, being resurrected as a hologram three million years after everyone to whose expectations he had ever wanted to live up to was dead had been a devastating blow to this Rimmer. Removing the only way of self-betterment he had ever known, the only way his parents had ever shown him – becoming an officer – had left this Rimmer reeling, and even after years and years, he had not caught his balance. And yet, his personal connection to his crewmates, though dysfunctional and askew, was deeper than anything the _Wildfire _had ever witnessed with any of the previous Aces. And that was why, when he attempted to leave without a proper goodbye, anxious to get on the way because he was, like every Rimmer, afraid, because he thought that his fear would get the better of him, she speedily reprogrammed her circuits, and instead of starting the ignition sequence, he activated the ejection seat.

Half of her RAM was worrying that he would throw it all down, then and there. Declaring that he could not even push the proper buttons, that he could not possibly become Ace, that he was just a failure and that nothing had ever gone right for him, so why should this? But Rimmer lived up to her expectations and more. He had a proper goodbye with his friends, even though they believed him to be Ace. And then, he had gotten the phrase wrong. "Stoke me a clipper; I'll be back for Christmas!" Where had that come from? It had thrown the _Wildfire _for a loop – none, none of the thousands of previous Aces had ever gotten the phrase wrong, not once, not even the first time. She had not known what to say, she had not known how to react – she hadn't even had a proper conversation with this Rimmer yet. It was only when she heard him mutter "Whatever." and he started her up with the sure hands of someone who knew precisely what he did, in a clinical way, though he'd never had the practical experience, that she relaxed. Because this Rimmer was different, and for once, she could see the potential for real growth. More, she could see the _desire_ for growth. This Rimmer did not slip into the role effortlessly. This Rimmer struggled with it, fought it, because he had met the original Ace and had been the first one, the only one to loath him, even before the _Wildfire _caught on. And it was not only because this Rimmer felt that Ace had gotten all the breaks that had been denied him. It was because Rimmer saw Ace for the pompous, overbearing, repulsive git he had been. Because he knew that _What a Guy! _Ace might be popular, might be attractive, brave, successful – everything he was not – but saw that he was not _better_. He was the flat, stereotypical hero right out of a B-movie without depth, because when he had 'buckled down', as Ace had called it, he had merely found a more efficient way of escaping. He had become someone he was not, someone he should, by all rights and purposes, not even like. Because _suffering maketh man_ and Ace was too superficial to feel real emotions.

She had planned to take Rimmer to a quiet dimension, to have a nice, long talk. She needed to fill him in on his predecessors, what they had done, whom they had met, she had to make him practice Ace, because if he wasn't convincing, he would be dead within the minute they ran into trouble, but most importantly, she had to show him that there were ways he could change, could become better, that did not involve rising up the echelons of command. She had to show him that he had been on the right track, that he just needed a chance to feel needed, to be successful, to have something he was _good _at, and that he could burn his self-loathing out in a true effort to change, without the trappings of an officer career which he was not cut out for, nor did he, in his heart of hearts, believe he deserved it.

Of course, it had all gone horribly wrong. She had navigated them right into a volatile hostage situation between two rival spacefaring GELF tribes, and Rimmer had been thrust head-on into his duty as Ace. She was just as terrified as he, fearing for his life more than she had feared for any of the Rimmers before him, because it would have been such a waste. This one was the first who had any change of becoming the best Arnold 'Ace' Rimmer there had ever been, and she would never have been able to forgive herself if she had gotten him killed before she could tell him – or, even worse, if he _became _Ace like all those before him, and stopped being Arnold all together. He screwed up the voice a bit, but otherwise managed the situation nicely – there were no blazing guns, but he got the two GELF tribes together at the same table, and in the end, the hostages were released on both sides, and the GELFs parted in peace – not a drop of blood spilled. He could have had the pick of the captain's daughters of both vessels, who were both incredibly attractive, having evolved from model-GELFs. The _Wildfire _had brazed herself for meeting them both, and had scaled up the privacy setting of Ace's small bedroom, and she had felt sick at heart. The elation she had felt when an Arnold became Ace was gone. So was the ambivalence. She was grieving for a chance lost, for destroying something so precious.

Rimmer had stepped back into the _Wildfire _to a chorus of "What a guy!" he had been alone, and as soon as the hatch had shut behind him, his placid smile had turned into a disgusted sneer and he had torn off the wig. "What a load of smegging nonsense! _What a guy!_" he'd mocked. "What's with this ridiculous costume that it turns people into puddles of goo – it's smegging disgusting! Did you see those women? It's like they don't see me at all – all they want is to jump in bed with some pompous git of a hero! Seriously, what's wrong with them? They can't be that desperate for sex with those looks."

The _Wildfire _had silently rejoiced. She knew that this was the Rimmer she had been searching for for such a long time – ironically, the first Rimmer she had ever met who was not Ace. Ace had met hundreds of his duplicates, even apart from those that had become his successors, and he had never met someone quite like this Arnold J. Rimmer. And while Ace had thought that it was a good thing, not being able to bear seeing another version of himself so broken, so pathetic, the _Wildfire_ now knew that he had been wrong all along.

True, life was anything but easy with this Rimmer. He was truly struggling with being Ace. He was terrified half of the time, and when he was successful, part of him insisted that he did not deserve it. His hatred of Ace was as much of a hindrance as it was an asset – it took him longer than anyone before him to get the mannerisms right, and even then, he could not resist infusing them with a touch of sarcasm, a speck of overacting. No one but the _Wildfire _noticed, of course, but then she was always there for him. There when he got into the dumps, when he ranted about how he had screwed up his life, about how much he hated the fuss made around Ace, when he was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to rest but had to keep going, because Ace was needed. He was the first Rimmer who enjoyed being called Ace, but at the same time insisted that she called him Arnold, or Arn, or even Arnie when they were alone, because he was 'sick and tired of the pompous, arrogant, smegging tin-foil-wrapped goit'. He stood in his own way, still trying to come to terms with the fact that he had no one left to make proud but himself, and denying himself to be just that – his favourite argument being that it was not really him, but Ace, that he had just slipped into a role like a bad actor. But the _Wildfire _knew that, deep down, the acknowledgements, the successes did him good, that they began to heal his self-confidence, that his remarks became less sniding, that he laughed more often, relaxed more easily, that the anxiety headaches became less, that his priorities began to reassert themselves, that he was becoming a better man.

Like the Ace before him, he struggled with the loneliness. The _Wildfire _tried to be as efficient a companion as she could, but Rimmer was missing his friends – the crewmates he had hated and liked at the same time, the people that had accepted him back when he had nothing but loathing for himself, despite his shortcomings, though they had lied and insulted and mocked him, anything to hide how much they cared – the people he could not show how far he had come. He occasionally brought women back, but never formed any real connection, since, for them, he had to be Ace. He had tried to drop the act, once, but had changed his mind after trying to explain for five minutes and meeting only with a blank, and, frankly, disgusted look by the woman. He had thrown her out without even so much as a goodbye kiss after that and had fled back into the loneliness of space. Because, and that was the strangest thing, he needed the loneliness as much as he despised it. It gave him an opportunity to truly be himself, and to truly relax in a way he never could as Ace.

He had made it. He had proved to himself that he could be Ace. But it all meant nothing without someone who could acknowledge the enormity of that achievement. He wanted to do something as Arnold J. Rimmer and get the credit as Arnold J. Rimmer, not Ace, nor anyone. And the only achievement that he believed to be truly his own was that he had been Ace for ten years now, not that it seemed all that long when he had spent nearly 600 years on Rimmerworld, all on his own. But, considering his lifestyle and the many, many times his lightbee had been damaged, it was impressive. This Rimmer, this Ace, often survived on damned luck, and that made him more like himself than he realised.

The _Wildfire _enjoyed the quiet, the respite, but she knew it couldn't last. Just as she knew that the one Arnold J. Rimmer she had come to love like none of his predecessors could not remain with her forever.

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><p><strong>AN: **Hope you enjoyed it, and will have the time to drop me a review! :) The plot will really start of in the next chapter!


	2. The Dimensional Tear

**A/N: **So this chapter has my explanation of what happened at the end of series 8 - sound plausible to you? ;) And now, without further ado - on with the plot!

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><p><strong>II. The Dimensional Tear<strong>

None of them ever quite understood how it worked out with the nano _Red Dwarf_. When it hadn't looked like Rimmer would get back in time with the antidote, they had followed him through the dimensional gate, only to find that the device on the other side had short-circuited – Rimmer, obviously just in the middle of crossing when it had happened, had been severely injured and unconscious, but it didn't matter, because this _Red Dwarf _was perfectly organised and a lot more friendly than theirs had been lately – mostly because, one, they had spent their time in the brig or on some suicide mission, and two, because Rimmer was captain.

Rimmer – their Rimmer, nano-Rimmer – had never run into his alter ego on his mission to save his ship, and Lister had to admit that it was probably better for him – two Rimmers in one room had never boded well, ever, no matter how many times they had tried. But this dimension's Rimmer, Captain A. J. Rimmer, was very different from what Lister had expected. He could be as much of a smeghead as their Rimmer, but he was a successful smeghead – and it had done him a world of good. He was easier to get along with, less bitter, less resentful, having achieved what he had always wanted – to become an officer. And yet, when he compared him to Ace, it was jarring. Ace had been… well, Ace, but the Captain was undeniably Rimmer. He was sadistically amused by their predicament, congratulating himself for avoiding this particular disaster, and for not being like his alter ego. Nevertheless, he was happy enough to help, if only to get rid of them. The Cat – their Cat – also couldn't wait to get back – he found his alter ego 'too strange'.

To their astonishment, the dimensional portal became functional again after a while, and when they returned, they found their _Red Dwarf _perfectly intact, but deserted, a couple of plips on the long, long, long range scanner indicating the ships in which the crew had escaped. Rimmer, newly on the mend and seriously pissed off at how things had transpired, declared he could not see anything, and they returned to their original purpose – getting back to earth, somehow. They eventually figured that Kryten's nanobots must have had their hand in the mysterious restoration (They never knew that a certain dimension jumping ship had dropped by with an exhausted occupant who never realised just in which dimension he was, who had found the decaying ship and had used the _Wildfire_'s nanobots to restore it in the memory of the people he knew, even though none of them were in sight. It had been one of his bad days.).

After a while, the ships trailing them disappeared from the radar, and Kryten reckoned that they had found a planet and settled down, if only to appease his guilt chip. Still a few weeks later, Kristine Kochanski died when an airlock malfunctioned and she was blown into space too soon. They never found the body. Lister turned into a bit of a mess for a while, but there was always the Rimmer Experience to cheer him up – not that he would ever admit using it to anyone, least of all to nano-Rimmer, who was somehow the same and somehow so different from the Rimmer that had left them to become Ace. Not that the Cat and Kryten knew that – they still believed there was only one Ace, and that their Rimmer had died a tragic, unexpected death, which had stunned even the Cat into silence.

Lister had told nano-Rimmer, though – partly because he knew it annoyed him to no end to hear of his other self – a self that even he was forced to acknowledge as somehow more real than he was, despite his hologrammatic status, because nano-Rimmer had no memory of ever even attempting to fix the drive plate, or of dying. He had struggled to wrap his mind around the fact that they had been transported three million odd years into the future, and he found the changes in his bunkmate incomprehensible – not that he seemed to mind much, because somehow, they got along far better than they ever had, even with holo-Rimmer. Lister figured he had probably matured a bit, against his will – just a tiny, miniscule bit – and their prison experience had bonded them together, finding them on the same side more often than at odds, even though Lister could not resist winding Rimmer up a bit. It was what kept him sane, after all.

Still, they could share a joke, laugh with each other rather than about the other; what had always only been a shared smirk with holo-Rimmer blossoming into something more. And yet, there was no denying that this Rimmer lacked some of the growth that had occurred in holo-Rimmer. His desire to become an officer was still incredibly forceful, even though the prison sentence had dampened his hopes, and, somehow, not having had the experience of being a soft light hologram and not able to do anything caused Rimmer to whine _more _frequently than his alter ego had – at least after holo-Rimmer had stopped complaining about being dead.

Sometimes, lying in his bunk at night, Lister would wonder aloud what the other Rimmer, Ace, was doing. He always had to remind himself of the _Ace _bit. He'd known that Rimmer had been able to do it, smeg, he had wanted him to do it, giving him just the little push he had needed. And yet, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling of having pushed him to his death – real death – once he had gotten over his irrational bout of missing the smeghead. It was Rimmer, for smeg's sake – even as a hard light hologram, he was far too cowardly, too naïve to last long – wasn't he?

"Lister, you're doing it again," Rimmer, nano-Rimmer, murmured from the bottom bunk.

"Sorry. I'm jus' wonderin' if we ever run across Ace again."

"And if it is going to be _him_."

"Well, yeah."

"Frankly, after what you've told me about him, I don't want to meet him. That Ace sounds like a completely insufferable goit. I can't imagine why I would ever want to become him."

"Rimmer thought the same when he first met Ace. He still did it."

"Dying must have messed him up a lot."

"I don't know, Rimmer."

"As long as you don't expect _me_ to wear that ridiculous wig."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Rimmer. Besides, Ace probably won't come back to this dimension anyway. It's not like he would expect to find a replacement here."

"Are you quite finished now, Lister?"

"Yeah. Night, smeghead."

"Good night, Lister."

...~oOo~...

"You know, I've always wondered why people insisted that Napoleon was small even after they had figured out that someone had confused the measurements. They even got small actors to play him."

"Is this important, Arnold?"

"They decided he had to be compensating for something. I don't know." Rimmer tapped his lips with his index finger, swivelling slightly in his chair and concentrating on the game before him. "Everybody always thought something was wrong with all the great leaders. Alexander the Great, Caesar… True, some of them got a lot of people killed, but still. How come you have to be nuts to be great?"

"I remember one dimension where Napoleon was a woman," the _Wildfire_'s computer said. She was still not quite used to Arnold's aimless conversation – often on the strangest topics – but she indulged him where she could. Her database was extensive, and had been improved by hundreds of Aces who had had a hand for engineering. This one didn't, but he had surprised her and, she assumed, himself with quite good, if a bit clinical, flight skills – he had no room for improvisation, but an incredibly repertoire of all the famous flight manoeuvres of history, and the theoretical knowledge to carry them out – and a surprisingly solid understanding of his own hologrammatic status and requirements. He was also the only Rimmer who had ever, if only occasionally, reverted back to soft light, and had gone through the trouble of fixing the most essential of her systems with hologrammatic controls because a power loss probably terrified him more than a ship full of Simulants – though they both had no idea when that had happened.

He was soft light now, but then he didn't really need to touch anything to play a Risk campaign against the computer. She was grateful, because it took a lot of drain away from her energy reserves, which, though powered by solar radiation, were not unlimited. She knew he didn't enjoy not being able to touch anything, but the _Wildfire _was by now as close to a hologrammatic ship as they could get her, so it didn't matter much either way. She would never allow him to go into danger as soft light, though – the risk of damage to his lightbee and of alienating all the people he was trying to save was far too great, quite aside from the fact that he couldn't even do anything effective in this state.

Rimmer made a face. "I think I've been to that one. Not an experience I am particularly anxious to repeat."

"It's your move, Arn."

"I know! Don't rush me. This requires careful planning, you know."

They were drifting aimlessly in space, taking a much needed rest. Rimmer, this Rimmer, always took failure hard, and it would always be some time before he was entirely ready to be Ace again. The _Wildfire_ had long ago learned that it was no use pushing him. If he needed some time to be Arnold, he needed some time to be Arnold. If he didn't get it, he only got reckless, and far too much like the original Ace than was good. The last _failure_ had not even really been a failure, but more of a qualified success. Rimmer still blamed himself, and the _Wildfire _had the sinking feeling that it was getting worse. Ace got the success, but the failure was always Arnold.

He was past the 'I can't manage anything' phase by now, but still pensive and melancholy, which probably also explained why he had requested to be soft light, wearing a military style red tunic and no wig. Especially no wig.

"Lister always refused to play Risk. I suppose he found it boring."

"It is not the most thrilling game, Arnold."

Rimmer shrugged. "I suppose playing strip poker with a male cat with six nipples, an android running around naked most of the time anyway and a head of a computer was more exciting."

"You did not participate?"

"To be fair, Lister only tried it once. I think he was not quite prepared for how Cat looked under those fancy clothes. I was still a soft light hologram back then. I couldn't have participated even if they'd asked me to. Besides, I have seen Lister's body – never again."

"You could have entertained them with your impersonations." Rimmer had once re-enacted an entire Kinitawowi ceremony he had to suffer through as Ace for her – voices and all – even though the _Wildfire _had access to his memories. He had enjoyed the mockery, so she didn't feel it was necessary to remind him of that particular fact.

Now, he shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think they would have wanted spend more time with me, anyway – we were constantly at each other's throats in _Starbug_. It was a bit cramped – no offense. It's not like I have to share with Lister here."

"None taken, Arnie." The _Wildfire_ was very aware that she was a strictly one-man-vessel. Even the occasional female company presented a bit of a problem. Not that Rimmer enjoyed the meaningless sex nearly as much as he thought he would – after all, what he had always wanted was a sex life, but somehow he had imagined that it would be with a woman who really cared about him and was not only trying to repay him for something he had done, or rather, Ace had done. Besides, some of the offers he had gotten had been downright disgusting. As time wore on, it had become easier and easier to say no.

Suddenly, a red alert light flashed up on the console. Rimmer looked up from the screen, alarmed. He had never seen that light flashing before. "Susan, what is this?"

The _Wildfire_'s computer didn't remember when he had started calling her Susan, but she didn't complain. She'd never really had a name, and it felt nice.

"There's something going on in the next dimension. Hang on, I'll check it."

Rimmer nodded. The _Wildfire _didn't sound too worried, which was good. He had become quite good at reading her over the years – if there was something he needed to be concerned about, even if she tried to hide it from him, he could tell.

He still tore his glance away from their game and turned around in the pilot chair to face the window – and that was when he saw it. A gigantic swirly thing, right in the middle of space, the wrong colour entirely for a time hole, and not quite right for a dimension jump. Right in their path. He might suck at mathematics and astronavigation, but he had had enough experience to know that this was bad news. He took control of navigation, and fired up the thrusters, trying for an evasive action. "Susan, what is that thing?!"

The computer was silent for a long time, long enough for Rimmer to realise that, whatever he did, the _thing_ was homing in on him. "You should switch to hard light, Arn."

"What is it?"

"It is a dimensional tear."

"A what?"

"A tear in dimensions, tearing dimensions apart. Hang on, we are being dragged in – hard light, Ace!"

"Right!"

He had only converted halfway when the tear crashed into them, and everything went black.


	3. Saving the Multiverse

**A/N: **Onwards to chapter 3! (Rimmer, I am so, so sorry.)

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><p><strong>III. Saving the Multiverse<strong>

"Ace! Arnold! Arnie!"

Rimmer jerked awake, his personality fizzing back as his hologram reasserted itself.

"Oh, thank God," the _Wildfire_'s computer sighed in his head, projecting herself directly through his lightbee.

Rimmer pushed himself upright. He had been flung forward across the console, where a bunch of warning lights were now flashing. He couldn't exactly avoid looking out of the front window in his position, but instantly wished he hadn't. Space had disappeared and been replaced by something disconcerting, a kind of lilac whirl, fragmented and with snatches of normal space whizzing past while the _Wildfire _hovered, motionless, in its centre.

"What happened?"

"We've been dragged into the dimensional tear. It was like dimension jumping, but not quite. You didn't revert to hard light in time, Ace – the lightbee's been damaged."

Rimmer quickly patted himself down. Everything felt fine, and he was obviously fully hard light now – he also was back in Ace's costume, though the wig still lay at his side. "Am I okay?"

"Yes, it looks as though the self-repair programme can handle it."

"Are _you_ okay?"

"I've navigated us to the centre. We are safe here."

She did not answer Rimmer's question directly, and that made him nervous. Out of instinct, he switched to being Ace. "So, what's out there?"

"What you can see are the fragments of various dimensions."

"Fragments?"

"Yes."

"That doesn't sound too good."

"You remember those split seconds during dimension jumping when we seem to exist in two dimensions at once, when I built a bridge for us to jump from one dimension to the next."

"So what's this – some kind of permanent bridge?"

"It's a tear, Ace. It's not healthy. It's like a very nasty cut in the fabric of the multiverse, ripping right through the dimensions – they are clashing, bleeding into one another – it's destroying them. No rules of time and space can apply here."

"Destroying whole dimensions?"

"And everything in them."

"Then we have to stop it."

"Ace – we might be the reason for this damage."

Rimmer fell silent, staring out into the sickening swirl. "How?"

"It's followed us. I can't tell how, but it's definitely traced our steps – it was supposed to find us, but it is still expanding."

"So all the past dimensions we have visited – they are all out there? Torn to smithereens?" Rimmer found his voice cracking – it was too much to comprehend. All the people he had met, all the things he had done in those dimension, which, though sometimes a bit absurd, had felt just as real as the one he had come from – he could not understand how they could all be gone. And most importantly – _why?_ But there was no time for that question now. "Can we fix it? You stitch up the bridges every time we jump."

"We can't fix it, Ace. They are gone – but we might be able to stop it from expanding. It's going to be a bumpy ride, Ace. It's going to be dangerous."

"I saw it homing in on us. If we run, it will tear through even more dimensions. We have to do it." If they didn't stop it, it would eventually reach his home dimension, it would eventually reach every dimension, until there was nothing left – even just imagining that brought Rimmer to the edge of his comprehension. What would happen to him, then? Would he drift about in the nothingness of destroyed dimensions, just as he was now, for all eternity, with only the computer for company? Would he cease to exist when his home dimension was destroyed? Would the _Wildfire _cease to be? How did it feel being in a dimension that was torn apart? He didn't think it would be pleasant.

The _Wildfire _knew exactly what he was thinking. "Your dimension is still safe, Arn."

Rimmer nodded. "Thank you." He pulled on the wig, and took control of the ship. "Right. Let's do this!"

"I've traced it to Dimension B4F18F102B. That's ten jumps. Can you handle it, then I can concentrating on stitching up the tear?"

"You got it, Computer. Here we go."

...~oOo~...

Rimmer could handle five jumps, then he was violently sick in the toilet facilities in the rear of the ship, while the _Wildfire_ hummed comforting around him. Still, he could feel the strain on her systems through the hotlink to his lightbee, just as he could feel her anxiety.

"We have to keep moving, Ace. It's like stitching up a wound with dissolving thread – if we don't do it fast enough, we'll have to start all over again."

Rimmer pushed himself upright with a groan. One regular dimension jump, even two or three were no problem at all once you got used to it, but this was neither normal dimension jumping, nor were they anywhere near through it. The lack of space coordinates, even dimension coordinates, messed with his basic sense of astro-orientation, and the constant lilac swirl made him dizzy. He should not be able to be that sick, being a hologram, not even in hard light – after all, he had not really eaten any proper food in days, but he still had hacked up bile until his stomach had settled and he sat on the floor with his eyes squeezed shut against the swirling surroundings.

Still, somehow, he felt the same urgency as the _Wildfire_, and managed to drag himself back into the pilot chair. "Get her on the way, Susan. I've got this."

The final jump spat them out into normal space in Dimension 3BAA102A: a dimension ship with its power reserves nearly depleted by the lack of suns in the void of destroyed dimensions and an exhausted AI, and its occupant, beyond sick, dizzy and exhausted, on the brink of passing out from the strain on his mind and simulated hard light body. They hurtled right into the firing line of a Simulant battle cruiser.

"Smeg!" Rimmer jerked out an evasive manoeuver out of pure instinct, his vision swimming, sirens screaming in his ears. "Susan! Get us out of here! We have to jump!"

"Can't", came the weakened reply, "have to contain the tear. This dimension is already damaged – if we jump now, the next one will be sucked into the tear as well. It's your home dimension, Arn."

Rimmer felt his lightbee jerk and shudder inside him. He couldn't handle any more of this. He was _this_ close to a hologrammatic stroke, his T-count through the roof, his mind already fraying at the edges and his legs fading in and out of existence. "Smeg, smeg, smeg! I can't take much more of this!" He wrenched the ship around to avoid another missile, but power was low, and it was like trying to move a stubborn mule. The missile crazed them, and the _Wildfire_ bucked. "That hit the drivepot! Susan, can you get me fire power?"

"Enough for a single shot, but I won't have enough energy left to manoeuver!"

"Our momentum will carry us to that moon – I can get us down, you know I can! Transfer the power!"

A video communication flickered up on the screen before Rimmer just as he hit the trigger, and he caught a glimpse of the captain of the Simulant ship even as his missile struck the vessel with deathly precision – it had not been specialised for Simulants for nothing – and their attacker was torn apart. Then, power was gone, and gravity took over, hurtling them down towards the moon with sickening speed, ripping them through the atmosphere – and they were going too fast – and Rimmer's lightbee gave out with a sad plip.

...~oOo~...

He awoke to the feeling of having been offline for a while, which was actually quite nice from time to time, but this time, it came with the sickening realisation that he was standing in the wrecked cockpit of the _Wildfire_, its snout buried halfway in the rocky ground, the windscreen shattered, the consoles mangled and smoking, and he incorporeal soft light. He had fainted, and they had crashed. He should not even have survived that, but somehow, he had.

"Susan?"

For a long time, there was no reply, and Rimmer scrambled into the cockpit frantically, trying to locate the mainframe – but he was useless as an engineer. Eventually, after much desperate searching, the computer's weak presence niggled at the back of his mind, somewhere in the sensory input from his lightbee – which, miraculously, had survived the crash without damage, even his T-count was back to normal.

"Arnold."

"There you are. Don't worry me like that, you know I can't stand it."

"I'm sorry, Arnie. There is not much power."

"The generators have been damaged?"

"They are still working, but I can't store the energy properly. Had to use up most of it to boost the repair programme of your lightbee."

Rimmer placed a hand on his midsection, where he knew the lightbee was hovering. "But…"

"Your T-count was through the roof, Arnie – it was eating away at your programme. I had to."

"So, what now? I can't fix you as long as I am soft light."

"Arnie-"

Rimmer knew what she was going to say, but he didn't want to hear it. The _Wildfire _was dying, because she had saved him. "We'll just wait until there's more power, then I can boot up the hard-light drive."

...~oOo~...

He ended up sitting on the _Wildfire_'s snout, back to hard light, looking out over the rocky landscape, conversing with Susan through the psychic link in his lightbee rather than through the voice unit to save a bit of energy, at least. "Can you tell where we are?"

"It's Io, Arn."

"Io? You mean-"

"It's Io. That's all I can tell right now."

"Okay." Rimmer frowned. He'd thought the terrain had looked familiar, somehow. "Do you have a recording of that message we got just before I blew the Simulants up? I thought I recognised that face – weren't they experimenting with dimension jump technology?"

"It was them, Arn."

"But that was years ago – all the dimensions between then and-"

"Only those in a straight line. Ten. This one is falling apart, as well – the experiment has backfired."

"We've done it though? Stopped the tear?"

"Yes."

Rimmer swallowed around a lump in his throat. "Can you tell how many-"

"You don't want to know, Arnie."

"Tell me."

"Ten trillion, Arn."

"Smeg."

They fell silent for a while.

Finally, the _Wildfire _nudged him gently. "It's not your fault."

"Why? Why would anyone want to tear whole dimensions apart?"

She had to tell him the truth. "They've been doing it to find you, Arnie. To get back to you. Well, Ace. But you."

"But why? I let them go back then, didn't I? I spared them. I could have destroyed them, but I didn't. Wasn't that the right thing to do?"

"I'm sorry, Arnie. I can't help you with this. I have not been programmed for moral dilemmas, my circuits can't take it." The _Wildfire_ felt Rimmer's desperation, his insecurity, his doubts, his fear. He knew he was losing her, and she loved him too much to not make a final effort, for his sake. "Would you have acted differently if you had known?"

"If I had known that they would kill trillions of lifeforms to get back to me?"

"Yes. Would you have destroyed them, vulnerable, defenceless as they were?"

Rimmer swallowed. "… I don't know." Years ago, he would have said _yes_ without hesitation. But that was when he hadn't even thought about being Ace.

"Arn, your lightbee! It can't take it. I… can't…" The computer's voice drowned out like a damaged record, and Rimmer was left alone in the darkness, a crushing weight on his chest, and stared out over Io's desolate landscape, unseeing.

...~oOo~...

The _Wildfire _couldn't recharge enough to restore the voice link, her power units were decaying quickly. The damage done by the dimensional tear, her effort to keep him sane and safe, had pushed her beyond repair. At least, by morning, he could communicate, even though it hardly felt like talking to Susan. He ended up imagining her soft, gentle voice as he read the answers the computer supplied in terse language, occasionally even in binary, even though it only added to the ache he felt in every fibre of his hologrammatic body.

This dimension was lacking after the others – in this dimension, he was still an eleven year old boy running around the moon somewhere. Probably hiding from his brothers. But this dimension was also crippled by a devastating war, brought on by Simulants who were as far advanced as the ones he had met three million years into the future. Rimmer knew that, as Ace, he would have no problem finding a job here, as a fighter pilot in the space corps perhaps. The dimension didn't have long, anyway. It was only a matter of time before the aftereffects of the tear would have decayed it completely, melting it with the next-best dimension and destroying all life within.

This was not how he had imagined spending the rest of his existence, but he could not stay by the _Wildfire_'s wreck. Once the solar generators gave out, his lightbee would be running on battery, and unless he found an alternative energy source, and quickly, that would be the end of him. He owed her to at least try, after all, she had torn herself to pieces to get him to the ground undamaged.

Rimmer almost bent over double as pain wrecked him at the thought – he remembered her last words clearly – _Your lightbee! It can't take it! _– and he knew that she had meant the guilt, the moral conflict that ran again and again through his head without hope of solution, but he couldn't help it – it was who he was. One of his greatest fears was _physical_ torture, because he had already been torturing himself _mentally_ forever. He had no self-loathing beast left anymore – maybe – but there was no way he could stop blaming himself for what had happened, and no way he could have acted differently without being anyone other than the man he had become. Not only Ace, and not merely Arnold Judas Rimmer, but something in between. His own kind of Ace.

...~oOo~...

He left by midday, and by early evening, he reached the habited areas of the moon, with barely any energy left in the lightbee. The solar generators had shut out much sooner than he had expected.

He saw the Simulants in the shadows before the boy looking out over the cliffs at the edge of the village did – but he was too far away to cry out, and he didn't have any weapons. The boy turned around when he heard the guns click behind him, and froze to the spot in shock, dizziness from not eating because he had not been able to remember anything on astronavigation during breakfast forgotten.

Rimmer broke into a sprint, rushing towards the gun instead of away from it for once, and hit the boy running, pushing him out of the way – "Run! Get out of here!" He did what he was told, because running away was what he did best, but Rimmer never really saw that. The blast of the energy gun hit him squarely in the chest, catapulting him straight over the edge of the cliff. He scrambled for a handhold, anything, even as he tried to cope with the pain while his lightbee buzzed to repair the damage – he finally caught a branch, only just closing his fingers around it. He was dangling about half way up – or down – the cliff, but there was no way he could climb down – or up. This Io had been partially terraformed to accommodate humans, but some areas where still raw, sporting cliffs and rocks that were as smooth as a baby's bottom.

The Simulants did not even bother to check whether he was truly dead – and why would they. They had lost what they had thought would be easy prey, and had found someone else, thanks to Rimmer – and it had been Rimmer, because he was not wearing the wig, not wearing the tin-foil. His lightbee, with its limited psychic abilities, had sensed his grief, and had wanted him to be comfortable. Well, he had saved the boy's life, and had paid the prize.

He hung by his arms, ignoring their trembling as they strained to hold him, his mind blank while his lightbee jittered with the effort and lack of power. He did not realise the enormity of what he had done – acting completely unselfish as himself – and there was no _Wildfire _to call it to his attention.

"Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast," Rimmer murmured, sarcastically, reflecting that they probably were better last words than 'Gazpacho Soup', though he still didn't have time for even a heroic couplet.

He stared at his hands as he felt the last of the power draining away, plenty of time to appreciate the irony that being a hologram would be what got him killed in the end. Then, without a sound, though he imagined there should be one, his lightbee gave out and reverted him to soft light. His hands slipped through the branch as though it had never been there, and he fell, not even feeling the wind as the air rushed past him, or he through the air. He only felt the ground when his lightbee impacted, then nothing.

No one believed Arnold Judas Rimmer, aged 11, when he had told his – well, the people that would occasionally listen to him that an enemy Simulant had threatened his life and he had been saved by someone who looked exactly like the imaginary hero he always wanted to be when he was grown up and a fighter pilot in the space corps. Or maybe even an officer.


	4. Finding Io

**A/N: **New chapter! In which I expand a bit on the idea that Rimmer has a certain talent for impersonation and the theory that Rimmer was projected completely by Holly in the early years after the accident before he acquired a lightbee...

* * *

><p><strong>IV. Finding Io<strong>

Lister was not a big fan of charades, but it was about the only game he could interest Cat, Holly and even Rimmer in, though Kryten refused to see the point. The droid, however, ambled away quite cheerfully to do some ironing and keep an eye on the drive room while Holly was occupied.

Holly's repertoire was a bit limited, though his moon imitation never got old, and the Cat, frankly, sucked, but Rimmer proved to be surprisingly versatile, though he was hopeless at guessing. Somehow, they ended up enjoying themselves anyway, and somehow, after the Cat had fallen asleep and Holly had buggered off somewhere, the game had turned into _Guess Which Crewmember Rimmer Is Imitating_. It was surprisingly easy – Rimmer did a damn fine impression of Captain Hollister when he wasn't trying for mockery, and when he was, Lister even found it hilarious – both to his surprise and Rimmer's. After laughing until his eyes started to water at Rimmer's imitation of the ship's psychiatrist, their conversation took on a lazy, companionable air.

"You know, I don't think I have ever enjoyed myself this much in my entire life, Lister."

"Ah, come on, you don't mean that. You had fun on your deathday, didn't you, and that time we had a farewell party for Kryten-"

Rimmer shot him a pointed look.

To his credit, Lister caught on immediately. "Oh, smeg, I'm sorry. That was the other-"

"The other Rimmer, yes, I gathered as much when you mentioned a _deathday_. Seriously? Who would want to celebrate their own death?"

"You did – the other you did. He always said that his death was one of the most important things that had ever 'appened to him."

"Well, I should imagine." Rimmer crossed his arms defensively. "If you had such a splendid time together, why did he leave?"

"I told ye – he had to become Ace."

"Because the multiverse can't survive without a hero who sounds like he jumped out of a bad film?"

"Well, yeah. I guess. I don't know!"

Lister was saved by Kryten bursting into the room, quite exited. "Oh, sirs, Mister Lister, sir, you have to come to the drive room immediately!"

"What's the matter, Kryties?"

"Holly has picked up an automated distress call, Mister Lister, sir – it's the _Wildfire_."

Lister immediately shot to his feet, and rushed out, trailed by a puzzled Rimmer. "The what?"

"The _Wildfire_ – that's R- Ace's ship."

Rimmer rolled his eyes skywards. "How charming."

Lister hit the drive room in a sprint. "Hol, what's going on?"

"I'm picking up a distress call on that uninhabited moon down there, Dave."

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. I'm not that far gone, am I?"

"Right, sorry, Hol, no offense. Set a course. We're goin' down in the _Bug_."

"It's automated?" Rimmer asked, completely unfazed by the excitement.

"Yeah."

"Then why bother? It could have been going on for centuries. There's probably nothing down there except for a wreck and a blackbox. He's probably miscalculated and DJ-ed right into the moon."

Lister ground his teeth. He had never been able to wrap his head around Rimmer's attitude towards other versions of himself, but this time, it felt much worse – because the version that had crashed to that moon might just be a version he had known himself. "We owe it to Ace to at least figure out what 'appened."

"That's odd."

"What is, Hol?"

"That moon. It's shaped exactly like Io."

"You what?"

"It's the right size, the right rocks, the right everything – just no trace of the dome settlements, but it's clearly been terraformed."

"But how can it be Io? That's 3 million years away."

"Beats me, Dave."

"Well, we're goin' down. You comin', Rimmer?"

"Fine."

Lister could tell, as they headed to _Starbug_, which had mysteriously reappeared as they had found the ship undamaged and whole, that Rimmer was just a bit curious, despite his words. Part of Lister really wanted to see his reaction to Rimmer – Ace – because the only difference between them was that one had died and been resurrected as a hologram, while the other had died, but remembered nothing, and had been brought back to life by nanobots. If any two versions of Rimmer had ever been more similar, it was the duplicate hologram and the original holo-Rimmer, though it had turned out that the limited power supply of the second hologram had somehow corrupted his disk, making him far more malicious than the original. That was why Lister had wiped him, and had always intended to wipe _him_ – because _he _would not have come to their bunkroom after a fight with himself, and he would not have worn that uniform to his execution. This time, there were no corrupted disks, but Lister could not shake the fear that they might find no Ace at all, or that they might find Ace, but not the one he was expecting.

The _Wildfire_ looked far worse than Lister had expected, almost as horrible as he had feared. She had crashed badly, ramming the cockpit right into the moon's surface. The once sleek snout was pressed flat like a pig's, and there was no doubt that essential systems had been damaged. The engines had practically melted away, scarred by weapon fire, and the solar generators lay bare and powerless. The only thing still working was the flight recorder, transmitting a weak automated distress call, and keeping a trace on something on a radar. Lister had a pretty good theory about what it was.

The signal was getting weaker by the minute. Ace was not in sight. It had to be him – his lightbee. Lister had sent Kryten to find it, and did what he could for the _Wildfire_ – fixed the solar generators, hooked them up directly to the mainframe. After years of repairing _Starbug_ and Kryten, he'd learned a few tricks.

Kryten came back a few hours later with a mournful, teary expression and a very badly damaged lightbee he had found at the bottom of a cliff. It looked as though it had been smashed brutally and deliberately with a rock, more like a pancake now than a bee. Nano-Rimmer, surprisingly solemn, had taken charge of it and brought it back the _Dwarf_ to consult Holly, while Lister delved into the _Wildfire_, distracting himself by working himself senseless and at least figure out what the smeg had happened.

...~oOo~...

Holly tutted and clucked over the lightbee, deeming it beyond repair, but he reckoned there might be enough of the hologrammatic data left to reboot Ace using _Red Dwarf_'s own systems – and so, he sent Rimmer down to the hologrammatic suite, where he got to work, and Rimmer stood and watched as a column of light slowly formed into a man – a mirror image of himself in a red, pseudo-military and strangely iridescent uniform, a blatant big H blazing on its forehead. Once the hologram was fully formed it staggered, folding in on itself as if in pain.

Rimmer was too shocked to do much more than stand frozen as Holly exclaimed with enormous irritation: "The smeg-! What's he done?! I can't deal with that! Transferring to lightbee!"

The hologram flickered off, and suddenly, the damaged lightbee on the table to Rimmer's right came to life, hovering into the air and away from all solid objects, staggering rather unsteadily before the hologram appeared again, _sans_ H, and immediately collapsed to his knees. He looked exactly like Rimmer when he had a bad hangover, no sleep, and Lister was playing his guitar.

"Susan?" he whispered, whimpered, weakly. Somehow, this was not how Rimmer had imagined Ace, or how he had imagined his first words – what was wrong with the classics: _Where am I? What happened?_

"Gordon Bennett, Arn, it's Holly. Even you should be able to tell that," Holly retorted, still sounding a bit pissed off. "Didn't know it was you. Dave fed me some smeg."

"Holly?" The hologram looked up, disorientated, taking everything in before his gaze, hazy, watery as it was, but strangely probing, settled on Rimmer. Then he closed his eyes, shuddering as Holly fed him a flood of information to spare them all – himself, really – the awkward and stupid questions. It was enough to help Rimmer momentarily forget the pain. His lightbee was badly damaged, but now that there was enough energy feeding it, it would repair itself, but that wouldn't cure him. Rimmer knew that his T-count would keep on shooting through the roof, because he could not escape the moral vicious circle he found himself in – one with which even a truly human mind would have struggled, and for which his lightbee simply was not built. He was a time bomb, terminally ill, and he felt like it. It was only a matter of time before it had eaten away at him for so long that he ceased to exist.

He knew it, but forced himself to his feet to face his alter ego nevertheless – alive, reconstructed by nanites. Two Rimmers from the same dimension – the _Wildfire_ would have enjoyed that. He nearly broke down again at the thought, and his alter ego finally jumped in to help – but he was soft light, now. He had to do this on his own or not at all. He dragged himself over to the bunkbed that had been installed in the holo suite in his time to accommodate him when something in the projection unit needed fixing, and flopped down on it – he had never expected to see it again.

"So it's you," nano-Rimmer said, coldly, arms folded.

Rimmer exhaled, trying to drop his voice into a lower, Ace-like register. "I suppose you were expecting Ace to be different after what Skipper has undoubtedly told you." Smeg, he'd screwed up that line. Not only had he gotten the voice wrong, but he had referred to himself in third person. He had never been able to get the voice right when he was so obviously, physically, Arnold, but the second one was unforgivable. Then again, this Rimmer had never met Ace – perhaps he didn't even notice.

"That's not what I meant," nano-Rimmer said. "It's you. The one Holly brought back to keep Lister sane after the radiation leak wiped out the crew. The one who had adventures in space with Cat, Kryten, Lister, before leaving to become Ace. You're not some parallel version of you – us. It's you."

That, Rimmer had not expected. "Lister told you?"

"Yes. He never _stops_ talking about you. I don't think the Cat and Kryten know, though."

Rimmer nodded, both relieved and terrified. Relieved that he did not need to bother about being Ace, not right now – and terrified, because the person who would judge him the hardest had always been, and would always be, himself. And yet, he was home, on _Red Dwarf_, miraculously returned to them by nanobots along with the crew – though they were gone now, leaving only the new Rimmer behind. Somehow, this was not how he had imagined coming home would be like. He was aware that his other self was staring at him, waiting for a reply, but he was just too exhausted to think of one. "Holly, you've got to help me. Lightbee's damaged – I've got to be Ace."

"Right you are, Arn. I've tried hosting you, but there's something-"

Rimmer quickly cut him off. "The lightbee's already repairing. It won't be long, Holly."

"There you are, Arn."

Nano-Rimmer gasped when Rimmer changed before his eyes, then ended up staring at the wig in disgust even as 'Ace' sank back on the bunk in relief. "How can you bear wearing that thing?!"

"It serves its purpose," Rimmer murmured, feeling incredibly tired, but slipping effortlessly into Ace now. "I need to rest – but could you let Skipper know I would like to have a chat with him, there's a good chap? I have to talk to him immediately when he gets back. Much appreciated, Arn."

Nano-Rimmer bristled visibly at 'Ace''s patronising tone, but threw a mock salute and marched out of the room nevertheless.

Rimmer might have drifted a bit, closing his eyes against the most prominent sensory input he had as a soft light hologram, allowing his lightbee to repair the considerable damage without having to expend any energy on keeping him going. He could almost see the information racing through its circuits, the binary signals pulsing like ghost lights. He had become more sensitive to his lightbee since being Ace, probably because it had to do a lot more work for him now than when he had been with Lister and Co – the boys from the _Dwarf_, the posse. He wondered idly whether they still called themselves that. After all, nothing much had changed. Rimmer lazily sorted through the information Holly had fed him. Time had certainly marched on. Lister had found a Kochanski and lost her, and for a while, the _Red Dwarf _had been populated by a full crew once more – but now everything was back to how it had been in his time, only everyone was a bit older, and their Rimmer was alive. And he was every bit as stuck up as Rimmer remembered himself being before he had died. He was probably right now wracking his brain, trying to study for the astronavigation exam. Rimmer could have told him how pointless that was. With a ship like the _Wildfire_, there was no point in remembering the Math – the computer could do that for him. No, the _Wildfire _didn't need someone to do the computing for her, she needed a sensible, responsible pilot to relieve her of the task of steering so she could concentrate on the difficult things. Susan had once told him, when he was feeling depressed, that he had been one of the very few Aces who had ever bothered to do her that favour. She had even said that he was a _good_ pilot. She had trusted him to keep her in one piece while –

Rimmer snapped his eyes open with a pained gasp. That train of thought was getting him nowhere – it only send the lightbee into a frenzy as a few circuits burned out to offer a release for the emotions they were not designed to deal with. It jittered in his centre, creating a feeling as if his stomach had been flopped upside down and the wrong way up. Rimmer swallowed down the simulated bile and resisted the urge to curl into a very un-Ace-like ball.

Instead he sat up on the bunk. "Holly?" he said in his most suave Ace-tone, trying to attract the AI's attention.

"Gordon Bennett, Arn, you could give a guy a right fright with that voice."

Ah yes, that was right – Holly had never met Ace in his male form… "You have to call me Ace, Holly."

"I'll remember that when the others are around, won't I."

"I'm sorry, Hol. I didn't mean to offend you."

"'s alright, Arn. I know you're not in top form."

"Listen, if Lister never told the others about… you know… how come they weren't surprised that Ace was a hologram?"

"Oh, he told us about the various Aces – he just never said that the previous Ace had died and you'd taken his place. We all thought you'd snuffed it."

"So where is everyone?"

"The other Arnold is in the bunkroom, ranting to my screensaver. The others are all down on the moon."

The moon – Io. Rimmer's memories rushed back with force, and he reached up to massage the bridge of his nose, trying to will them away. "How did you find me? Did you use the Holly-Hop-Drive?"

"Smeg no. That disappeared when the nanobots stole the old _Red Dwarf_."

"But you don't have dimension jumping capabilities."

"You what? Why would I need that? My systems couldn't stand it."

"But then how-"

"I picked up an automated distress call on that moon. We flew in, found the wreck, and Kryten dug your lightbee out of a gorge. The other you brought you back here."

"Let me get this straight – you didn't leave your home dimension?"

"Nah. I would have noticed."

Rimmer sagged in relief. He was in his home dimension, safe. When the previous dimension disintegrated, it must have spat out bits and pieces into its neighbours – and somehow, maybe because he had jumped dimensions so many times, he had survived it.

"Arnold? Are you all right?"

"Yes, thanks, Holly." He swallowed against the lump in his throat. "So, what's down there?"

"Nothing much really. Few bits of debris. Evidence of terraforming. Oh, and the _Wildfire_."

Rimmer's hologrammatic heart skipped a beat. "Is she-?"

"She's been badly damaged, Arn."

He'd known that already. He could deal with that. No need to probe further. "What are the others doing down there, then? Stretching their legs? Catching a whiff of rancid Io air? Shopping for rocks?"

"The Cat's asleep in _Starbug_, and Kryten is assisting Dave. Dave is trying to fix the _Wildfire_."

Rimmer was on his feet more quickly than he thought possible, and his lightbee complained with another stomach flop. "He is _what_?"

"All right, Arn, keep your hair on!"

"But it's Lister! He has no idea what he's doing! You have to stop him!"

"Hang on – they are on their way back. I have to go." Holly's face disappeared from the screen, and Rimmer sank back down onto the bunk. His lightbee had almost finished the repairs, drawing liberally on the ample reserves of the deserted _Red Dwarf_. If was fighting a losing battle against the progressing file corruption, of course, but at least the exhaustion and physical pain were gone, though he still felt as though his heart had burst into tiny, pointy shards. Still, he was fit enough to be Ace. Rimmer blew a simulated lock away from his forehead, deciding to remain soft light for now. The others already knew he was a hologram, and he could easily explain it away with the damage they had probably all seen. He could not deal with the hugs and handshakes just now.


	5. Welcome Home

**A/N: **So yes, I couldn't resist a slight reference to _Blue_. Feel free to make of the characters' reaction whatever you like. ;)

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><p><strong>V. Welcome Home<strong>

Kryten was the first to barge into the holo suite. "Oh, Mr Ace! It's so good to see you! Your lightbee was so badly damaged-" Kryten bit down a metallic sob, and Rimmer wrinkled his nose in disgust – inwardly. Outwardly, Ace beamed at the mechanoid.

"Good to see you too, Kryties. 'fraid I can't shake your hand right now – soft light for the repairs, you understand."

"Of course, Mr Rimmer, sir. Oh, Mr Lister will be so happy to see you! He was terribly worried when we found the wreck. Oh, and Mr Cat says he can't interrupt his nap right now, but he would love to show you some of his new suits later – if you are up to it."

"Tell him I would be delighted."

Kryten beamed, his hands fluttering with delight. "You have met Mr Arnold?"

"Yes, I have. I would like to have a word with him later, as well."

"Oh my, I haven't prepared any food! I'm so sorry!"

"Don't worry, old chum. Can't eat right now – soft light. Maybe an afternoon tea?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I'll go and prepare it now, sir. Mr Lister should be down soon."

"Thank you, Kryties."

Rimmer dropped the act as soon as Kryten's back had disappeared down the corridor, tiredness nagging at the back of his mind once more. "Hol, do you have enough power to boost my hard light drive?"

"Of course, Arn. Let me just shut down the lights in the sauna. There."

Rimmer carefully stepped away from all solid objects, then spread his arms as his hard light form reasserted itself. Once he had adjusted to the sensory input of solidity, he wandered around the room, stopping briefly at the dream recorder. "Holly, can you make a copy of my memories up until the Risk game and store it in your database?"

"No problem, Arn. Are you going to tell the others?"

"That is not your problem – keep the smeg out of it."

Holly threw a pout, then buggered off. Rimmer's wandering turned into pacing. When he heard Lister's steps in the corridor, he leant back against the table, trying to look relaxed, casual.

Lister stopped in the doorway, his eyes scanning the hologram carefully. He, Lister, looked older, but had aged with a certain dignity (of course, Rimmer had also simulated aging. If he wanted to pretend to be Ace, he had to grow older like any living person). Not that Lister smelled any more pleasant, or that his shirts were cleaner, or that he had gotten rid of that smegging jacket. His hands were creased with oil, and everything in Rimmer's mind screamed _Wildfire_, but he forced out a smile, hoping it was convincing.

"Hello, Listy," he said, quietly, not bothering with Ace's voice. Lister knew, anyway.

Lister met his gaze, but pinched himself in the arm at the same time. "Ouch. Hi."

"What did you do that for?"

Lister shrugged with forced nonchalance. "Jus' makin' sure you're not goin' to jump me."

Rimmer recoiled physically with shock. "What? Have you taken leave of your smegging, curry-dulled senses? Isn't the other Rimmer keeping you sane?"

Lister smiled. "'s good to see ye, man. You're doin' okay? Bein' Ace? Kryten showed me the lightbee – are ye-"

"I'm fine, Lister."

"Great. That's, uh… great."

"Yes."

Silence settled over them for a moment. Then, Rimmer's mind would no longer be hushed.

"What about the _Wildfire_?" He had not meant to blurt it straight out like that. He had not meant it to sound that anxious, that desperate, but he couldn't help it.

Lister looked to the floor. "She's been pretty badly damaged. I'm no engineer, man. Jus' a useless space bum. I don't know if I can fix her. We've brought some bits back – they're in the landing bay." That seriousness, that melancholy, was new. Somehow, Rimmer found it easier to deal with that than with Lister's relentless optimism. He decided to, not so subtly, change the subject. "Why don't you take me down while we wait for Kryten to whip up a five course meal of waffles, tea cakes, muffins, scones and pie for tea? Pity we destroyed Talkie Toaster."

Lister gave a soft chuckle. "Oh no, 'e's back again. Resurrected when Kryten's nanites brought the _Dwarf_ back. We've banished 'im to the cargo hold."

They set off, comfortably falling into step beside each other. "So how have you been, Listy?" Rimmer asked softly, not wanting anyone to overhear him using his normal voice. "Still not space-crazy?"

"Nah. Spend the last year in the brig on floor 13 – didn't feel like being in space, to be honest. Life's been pretty interesting, you know. Met Kochanski again – well, another version of her. In 'er dimension, she was the last human alive, and Holly brought me back as a hologram to keep her sane. Wonder what kept 'im sane."

"You didn't get along?" Rimmer couldn't help feeling a little smug. Hadn't he always told Lister that it would never work out with him and Kochanski? She had dumped him for a reason, after all.

"Not really. Not like that, anyway. She kept going on and on about '_er Dave_. And Kryten didn't really like her, either."

"So how is rubber head? And the Cat? Same old 'Let's blast them out of the sky with our laser canons' – 'An excellent plan, Mr Cat, with only two small flaws: One, we don't have any laser canons, and two, we don't have any laser canons.'" Rimmer did the voices without thinking about it, so used to re-enacting his former crewmates for Susan that he never thought about how Lister would react to it – until the self-declared space-bum stopped dead in his tracks, staring at him.

Uncomfortable, Rimmer slipped back into being Ace, for the first time since he'd been around Lister again. "Skipper? Something wrong?"

"No, I'm sorry, man – smeg don't do this, don't give me that Ace crap, I can't take it right now, okay? I… missed you, man. I thought you'd died. 's jus' the other you did that voice impression thing only yesterday. And I 'aven't slept much, really."

"Lister, you should go to bed. You're starting to babble nonsense." And still… "You missed _me_?"

"Oi, don't let it get to yer head! You've changed, but ye're still a smeghead!"

"He remembers me!"

To Rimmer's surprise, Lister actually chuckled. "Kryten even had to cook up a thing in the AR for me – called it the Rimmer Experience. He'd composed it from your diary. It annoyed the smeg out of me the first time, but after a while it was actually quite funny."

"Which diary?"

"The one you wanted to leave to the aspirin' officers following' in your footsteps. I don't think Kryten read past the first few pages – seriously messed up, Rimmer."

"Yes, well, that didn't turn out as planned." Rimmer meant both the diary, which had become a lot more personal and private after Gazpacho Soup Day, and his attempts at becoming an officer.

"Don't say that – ye made it, man. You became Ace." Lister looked at him, taking in the signs of aging. "How long has it been?"

"About ten years. It's hard to tell when you jump between dimensions – time isn't always entirely linear."

"You must have done well, then."

He had gotten eleven dimensions destroyed, over ten trillion people killed, had crashed the _Wildfire_ beyond repair and would die without being able to recruit a replacement Ace, breaking the chain. Yes, he'd done well!

"Rimmer? Rimmer, are you all right?"

Rimmer jerked out of his thoughts at the sensation of Lister's hand on his arm. As far as he could remember, he'd last heard that worried tone from Lister when he had collapsed during his last exam before Lister went into stasis and had been carted off to sickbay, completely out of it. He wasn't that far gone now, was he?

"Ye look like ye've seen a ghost. Is it the lightbee? Do you need rest?"

Rimmer slipped away, bringing some of the space he was used to between them. "No, I'm fine. The lightbee is still repairing, that's all. Can we see the _Wildfire_ now?"

They walked the remaining distance in silence, but Rimmer would have been unable to utter anything anyway as soon as they stepped onto the gantry in the landing bay and he was able to look down at the pile of debris they had brought back from the planet. It hardly looked like the _Wildfire _at all. The entire cockpit was there, but except for one solar panel which should not be where it was in the first place, the rear of the ship was missing completely. Without it, the damage to the cockpit looked even worse. He closed his hands around the gantry's safety railing, fighting the urge to press it until he had crushed it in his fist. Once he'd gotten past the pain barrier, being a hard light hologram actually made him quite physically strong.

"I've tried charging up the mainframe with the solar panels, but I need a battery to go in between," Lister explained, hardly noticing Rimmer's reaction.

"Can you access the data?" His own hyperlink to the _Wildfire_'s computer was dead, either because he had been damaged so badly, or because the power was too low – or because the data was no longer there.

"Jus' the flight recorder," Lister was saying. "Though it doesn't make much sense. Holly says it's only for dimension jumping experts. The blackbox also recorded, but the files are password protected. Holly is uploading them to his database. We've gathered what we could find of your belongings from the rear of the ship. It's down there, in a trunk."

"Thanks," Rimmer said, and meant it. The _Wildfire _was not going to fly soon. If he was going to be on _Red Dwarf _for a while, he would rather have an eye on his personal, private things until he left than have them lying on that moon – or worse, have the Cat snoop around in them. Somehow, Rimmer doubted that the humanoid had shaken the habit of declaring 'shiny' things 'mine' and carrying them off – then again, for the Cat, this was Ace's stuff. He probably had too much respect for the hero to actually go through his belongings. It was laughable, really.

_If_ he ever got _off Red Dwarf_ again, of course. He mused that there might be worse places to be stuck in, but couldn't think of any off hand.

"Rimmer, are you okay? You've gone awfully quiet."

"The other Rimmer quite the chatterbox, is he?" Rimmer snapped before he could stop himself. He was not stupid – he could recognise the reaction for what it was: a defence mechanism because he was feeling vulnerable, but Lister somehow had always had a nag for bringing those out. Rimmer dragged in a large gulp of air. "Sorry. That was uncalled for."

Lister looked more surprised at the apology than the actual snap. "'s okay. And no, I s'pose he isn't. He's not quite you though – I mean he's you, jus' not _you_ – you know what I'm sayin'."

Rimmer nodded, taking the lead on the steps down into the landing bay. "Go on."

"Well, he doesn't have any memories of dyin' or bein' a hologram because the nanites reconstructed the _Dwarf _from before the accident, right? An' I guess I've been treatin' 'im differently than I used to treat ye back then. Sorry, I guess? I was jus' so blown away about everyone dyin'."

"Are you finally finished with your soppy reunion? I can't _believe_ I'm seeing this."

"Rimmer!"

Nano-Rimmer stepped out of the shadows under the gantry, where Rimmer could spot a large, open trunk. Of course.

Lister did not appear exactly pleased to see his counterpart. "What are you doing down here, man?"

"_I _was looking for some proof that _he_ is me."

"Of _course_ he's you! I told you, man!"

Holo-Rimmer held up his hand. "Lister-"

The Liverpudlian didn't even seem to hear him, though the other Rimmer certainly had, shooting a glare in his direction. "He's _hardly_ me. I could barely believe my eyes when I first saw him – honestly, look at that outfit!"

"I'm tellin' ye – he is you. The outfit is jus' Ace."

"Yes, a fat lot of good, your hero – the first thing he did after waking up was collapsing in pain and moaning after some woman."

Rimmer flinched. He'd known this couldn't end well – this was exactly how he had reacted when they had first met Ace. To be fair, this was still how he reacted when he was forced to be Ace for an extended period of time. But this hardly mattered now. "Just leave it alone, would you? I'm not staying. As soon as my ship is repaired, I'll get out of your hair."

"Oh no, matey – I know exactly what you're doing – running from the argument. You're just a smegging coward, and tell you what – that pile of junk is not going anywhere. You might as well hurl yourself out of an airlock and call it spacefaring, you baked potato."

"Leave the _Wildfire_ out of this, you stuck-up, self-important git."

"Rimmer! And Rimmer!" Lister jumped between them. "Would you stop it?"

They both ignored him – they had mastered ignoring Lister within the first two weeks of bunking with him.

Nano-Rimmer removed his hand from behind his back, revealing one of the guns that had once adorned Rimmer's bunk. "You just had to take these, hadn't you? Make you feel like a proper soldier, do they? I had always wondered where the non-nanite version of these had ended up. They found everything else in the _Starbug_'s wreckage – even the golf clubs. I have two full sets, now." He hefted the gun in his hand, oblivious to the fact that every trace of emotion had been wiped from his alter ego's face.

Holo-Rimmer carefully stepped closer, to where Lister was, and immediately found the gun sloppily drained on him. "Be careful with those."

The other Rimmer sneered. "Why? Don't you want the wood scratched? Do you still polish them, like we used to? _Priceless antiques_, eh? Have you ever even told Lister that they are fake replicas – they can't even carry any bullets." He squeezed the trigger ever so slightly.

Then, everything happened in a split second. The gun went off with a bang. Nano-Rimmer dropped it in shock. The bullet sped through the air. Holo-Rimmer pushed Lister out of the way. The bullet crashed into his left shoulder. Lister screamed something. The pain brought holo-Rimmer to his knees, then his lightbee drew power and booted up, pushing the bullet out of his hard light body and dropping it right into his palm.

He stood up, and time was back on track.

"Well _done_, Rimmer!" Lister said, glaring at nano-Rimmer, who still stood frozen in shock, smoking gun at his feet. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking at holo-Rimmer.

Rimmer nodded, showing him the bullet. "Yes – hard light hologram. Basically indestructible. It was a good thing it wasn't the gun I had loaded with holo-bullets."

"How did you know it wasn't?"

"I didn't. They are an identical pair."

Lister gave him an odd glance, then rounded on nano-Rimmer, fuming. Holo-Rimmer stepped into his way, picking up the gun while his alter ego backed away. "The replicas were still on _Red Dwarf _when we lost it. I had these made by a GELF merchant in one of the first dimensions I visited."

"Ye could have killed 'im, man! Ye could have killed me!"

"Leave him alone, Listy," holo-Rimmer said, quietly.

The two Rimmers locked gazes, then nano-Rimmer tore himself away and fled.

Lister still looked like he wanted to run screaming up the wall. "He's such a smeghead!"

Rimmer smiled, his lips pressed together. "He _is_ me." He engaged the safety on the gun, then returned it to its counterpart in the trunk, glancing over his belongings. As far as he could see, everything was still there – in particular everything potentially dangerous. "And he couldn't have known. These are identical to the replicas."

"How did _you _get two guns?" Lister asked, appearing at his shoulder. "You couldn't even handle bazookoids."

"Bazookoids aren't guns, Lister. Besides, do you think Ace can go running around kicking Simulants in the groin or knocking them over the head with bits of piping?"

"I s'pose not. So what's this about a woman, then? He wasn't ju' takin' the smeg, was he?"

"No – though he misinterpreted. I wasn't referring to a woman as such." Rimmer threw a pointed look back at the _Wildfire_.

"Wha – the ship? Ye nearly died and yer first thought was the ship?"

"She _has _been my home for ten years, Listy. The only place I could be me, really."

Lister's eyes travelled over the wreckage. "Smeg. I'm so sorry, man. I promise ye we'll fix her."


	6. Dying

**VI. Dying**

Kryten was waiting for them in the bunkroom they were currently using, which was a change from what Rimmer remembered – it was more spacious, but also not as pristine as the officers' quarters they had used for a while. It looked far more as though it belonged on _Red Dwarf_, reddish, messy, a conglomeration of odds and ends. Rimmer's bottom bunk still looked as tidy as it had always been, though slightly more used than it had when he had been a soft light hologram. Also, for once, there were some of his own belongings – or rather, nano-Rimmer's – scattered across the room, not only Lister's.

Kryten had obviously tidied up in a hurry, and now the table was set for tea, a plate of hot, sweet-smelling cookies in the centre.

'Ace' punched Kryten on the shoulder comradely. "This looks great, Kryties. I can't wait to taste those biscuits."

"Oh, Mr Ace, sir – it was no bother at all," Kryten gushed, fiddling with his cooking apron. "I didn't know how you liked your tea. Mr Rimmer takes milk and three sugar – is that fine?"

"Perfect, Kryten, thanks." Rimmer draped himself casually onto the chair, trying not to frown when Lister grabbed a cookie with his greasy fingers, munched it and then licked his fingers clean. "Come and join us, old chum!"

"Oh, no, sir, I shouldn't." Kryten pulled off his apron, folding it.

"Of course you should, Kryt," Lister said, between bites. "These are really amazing."

The Cat chose that moment to dance inside, wearing a flashy suit and obviously styled for the occasion. "Ace, bud! How are you?"

"Hello, Cat – nice suit!"

The Cat beamed a toothy smile. "Thanks. Looking good yourself."

Rimmer doubted that – his hard light form was far more sensitive to his physical condition than the soft light, and he was pretty sure that if he felt like death warmed up, he looked some of it, as well. He closed his hand around the teacup while Cat and Kryten settled down. It almost felt like old times – almost, if there hadn't been the persistent pain in his gut, the ridiculous costume and wig, and the second Rimmer, who briefly appeared in the door, met his gaze, then turned on his heels and walked away.

He settled into narrating one of his adventures as Ace, which delighted both Kryten and Cat. Lister seemed happily occupied with the food, but he kept shooting strange glances into Rimmer's direction as if he were trying to decipher some kind of subtextual meaning of which even Rimmer wasn't aware.

Personally, he wasn't feeling too good. Being Ace, talking about his successes, pretending it hadn't all gone horribly wrong was getting to him. He could feel a tension headache building behind his eyes, and he could only force himself to eat one biscuit before his stomach rebelled. The tea, though – the tea was a gift from the gods.

"So, where will you stay?" The Cat asked, forcing Rimmer's attention back to the present.

Rimmer looked at Lister. Somehow, the question had never occurred to him until it had been brought up. There was no empty bunk to return to – it was nano-Rimmer's, now. "I'm afraid the _Wildfire_ is not up to anything right now, so I must ask to impose upon you here."

"You are not imposing, Mr Ace, sir," Kryten protested at the same time as Cat declared: "You can have my bunk."

"Thank you, I wouldn't dream of depriving you of your snoozing place, old chum. I will be perfectly happy in some empty charters."

Kryten climbed to his feet immediately. "I'll prepare the penthouse suite for you immediately, sir."

"There is no need, Kryters, sit down. I should be happy with a spare room on this deck."

Kryten looked scandalised. "This deck? But sir-"

"I'm used to far more cramped quarters, dear chap. I wouldn't know what to do with all that space."

Kryten still didn't look too happy. "Next door, then?"

Rimmer nodded, and didn't try to stop the mechanoid this time as he bustled out, to prepare the room and fetch Ace's things. He finished the tea, weary of being the centre of attention, but trying to maintain an air of casualness and general Ace-ness, though he could feel the façade slipping. He should have been enjoying this, shouldn't he? Telling the people he knew best about the things he had achieved? Proving to them what he was really capable of?

The lack of answer, of any kind of input from the _Wildfire_, constantly at the back of his head for ten years, was starting to disquiet him. It was strange, really, that he had gotten used to it so quickly – after all, what were ten years in his six hundred odd years of existence, not counting downtime and the three millions years between his death and resurrection?

The Cat seemed finally to catch on that not everything was all right. "Ace, bud, are you okay?"

"Apologies, old chum – just a bit tired. I should get some rest when Kryten comes back."

"But I wanted to show you my suits!" Cat protested.

"Later, dear chap."

"Leave 'im alone, Cat. 'e's almost died in that crash," Lister said, drawing the Cat's attention away from Rimmer for a merciful second.

"What's gotten into you anyway? You've hardly said a word the entire time. Didn't you two always get along so well?"

"Jus' leave it, Cat."

Rimmer was saved from further attention by Kryten's return and immediately pushed himself to his feet. "Now, please excuse me, chaps. It has been a long day."

"Oh, but Mr Ace – you've barely eaten any cookies at all!"

"I didn't want to impose when everyone else was so obviously enjoying them – but if there are any left over, feel free to bring them by my room later, Kryts. See you all later, chaps." Rimmer tried not to make it appear as though he were fleeing, but he was grateful when the door whizzed shut behind him. The relief was short-lived – his alter ego was leaning against the wall outside, arms crossed.

"You're not fine, though, are you?" he said.

Rimmer felt a strange sense of déjà vu. "No." He keyed open the door to the next room, finding it perfectly cleaned and orderly, the trunk with his stuff sitting neatly in one corner. It was a single bunk room, small and cosy, with a little window out into space. "Can I have a word?"

Nano-Rimmer didn't reply, but followed him inside, waiting by the door as Rimmer sat down on the bunk. "It's not the bullet, though, is it?"

"No. _Lock_." Now that they were alone, Rimmer dropped the accent, the entire act. The lightbee, now at full power, sensed his change of mood, adapting his appearance until he was sitting on the bunk barefoot, wrapped in his favourite red dressing gown.

His alter ego didn't look too comfortable with the change, shifting from one foot to the other. "So…"

"I'm dying Arn."

Nano-Rimmer's chin dropped. "You're dying? But how can you be dying? You are a hologram."

Rimmer took a deep breath. He would need to do something against that headache soon, but this was important. He couldn't screw this up. "It is rare, but holograms can still die. And with my lifestyle…" He wasn't quite ready to tell the entire truth yet.

His alter ego sat down heavily at the chair that came with the room's small table. "… I'm sorry."

Rimmer did not say 'I've brought it on myself', though the words were sitting at the tip of his tongue. Instead, he said: "Lister has told you all about Ace, hasn't he."

"Yes, well-" Nano-Rimmer's eyes grew wide. "Oh, no, I couldn't! I'm not him – I can't be him! I can't even tell a fake gun from a real one! I can't even pass my astronavigation exams! I'm just a worthless, useless goit – I can't be a hero! I couldn't even _fly_ that ship."

"You're me – you are exactly like me up until the accident. _I _never passed my astronavigation exam. You don't need that to fly the _Wildfire_ – she can do the math for you. Just a bit of common sense-"

"Yes, but _you _spent smeg knows how many years having adventures in space – the only adventures I ever had were being nearly eaten by a bird regressed into a dinosaur and twisting my ankle, nearly drowning, and almost being shot in the head by Lister – with a harpoon!"

Rimmer decided he didn't want to know. "_I_ spent those years running and hiding from any danger, obsessing about aliens that never existed, creating my own personal hell – twice! – and convicting myself of second degree murder in over 1000 cases!"

Nano-Rimmer stared, stunned into silence – almost. "Second degree murder? I never got so much as a parking ticket."

"You're forgetting about the drive plate."

"The drive plate? What's the radiation leak got to do with anything?"

"You don't remember, do you? And Lister hasn't told you. How nice of him." Rimmer wasn't even sure he meant it entirely sarcastically. "It was us. We were mending the drive plate and didn't seal it properly. That radiation leak was entirely our fault."

This time, nano-Rimmer truly was beyond words.

Rimmer massaged the bridge of his nose, trying to contain the headache. "Look, I am sorry I had to break it on you like that. But you can make up for it all. You can become Ace – do the right thing, for once."

"But I'm not a hologram. I could get killed!"

"The _Wildfire_ can resurrect you as a hard light hologram. She has done the same for thousands of Aces."

"But I would have to wear that wig!"

Rimmer sighed. "Yes," he said, simply. "You'll get used to it." Not that _he_ ever really had. "Believe me – I know it looks impossible, but you can do it."

Nano-Rimmer folded his arms, leaning back in the chair. "So what are the peaks?"

"You get to be a hero. You get to lead battles. People will congratulate you. Thank you. People _like_ you. You'll get an amazing ship and a chance to see the universe. Plus lots of sex with beautiful women…" He might have been exaggerating a bit, but he remembered how he had been like before he had died.

"No, thank you. I have had enough meaningless sex to last me a lifetime."

This time, it was Rimmer's turn to be stunned. "What?"

"Yes, well, Lister decided it would be a good idea to pour a whole tube of that sexual magnetism virus over me – though, frankly by that time I had already had enough."

"_Sexual_ what?"

"Sexual magnetism virus. How come you don't know about that? Holly said you'd found those ages ago. Some scientist… Longstromm?"

"Langström? Don't remind me of her!"

"So you were around!"

"Yes… she infected me with a hologrammatic virus. Not one of my best days." Rimmer swung his legs up onto the bunk and lay back, exhausted. "Lister never told me that they'd brought back some of her research."  
>"Well, when does he ever tell us something interesting?"<p>

Rimmer's first instinct was to agree with his nanite alter ego, but then he thought back to all the times Lister had come barging into the bunkroom to tell him of some exiting discovery before he had left to become Ace, and said nothing about it. "You won't _have_ to have sex if you don't want to. But you'll have the opportunities."

"So basically I slip into that ridiculous role and I get everything I ever wanted? How come you don't seem too happy?"

Rimmer knew there was no point in lying. "You will _have_ to be Ace whenever you are in public. You can't ever let anyone know you're not. You won't be able to be yourself."

"Why would I want to be myself?"

There was no answer to that. This Rimmer did not have his experiences, and there was no way he could make him understand with words alone. "It is dangerous. Deathly, exhausting, heartbreaking. You will have to start running towards danger instead of away from it. You can screw up badly. But you will have the most fun and success you've ever had in your life."

"But I can't just disappear – the others-"

"We will find a way. Besides, the _Wildfire_ is not going to fly soon, and I am not dead yet. There will be plenty of time to train you – and to practice. But right now, I really need to rest."

Nano-Rimmer stood, kneading his hands. "Anything I can get you?"

"Just make sure no one bursts in here. And not a word to the others."


	7. Revealing Rimmer

**A/N: **Sorry for the slight delay. I have hit an unexpected snag in my progress with this fic due to feeling the need to catch up with nine serieses of a new fandom, but I hope to get some work done on this story this week, so here you go with the next chapter. Hope you are still enjoying it!

* * *

><p><strong>VII. Revealing Rimmer<strong>

Rimmer waited until his alter ego had definitely left, locking the door behind him, before he rolled to his side to face the screen and call on Holly again. He still found it a bit strange to see him back in his male form – he had gotten used to having a female computer around.

"So you've told him, have you," Holly said by a way of greeting.

"Can I just have something against the headache, please, Hol?"

"I'm not your mum."

"No, you're not. I would never have asked my mother for headache pills," Rimmer snapped back, missing the _Wildfire_. "Just do it, would you?"

Holly didn't even seem to hear him – or ignored him deliberately. "There is a way out of this, you know. I could wipe your memory."

Rimmer was silent for a moment, considering. Wipe his memory? Forget all about why the _Wildfire _was wreck, why ten trillion people and eleven dimensions no longer existed, delete the reason for his guilt and, therefore, the guilt? Ten years ago, he probably wouldn't have hesitated. Just after the accident, he _definitely_ wouldn't have hesitated. Holly had never offered to wipe his memory then – but then, his guilt hadn't been enough to kill him. Forgetting – it would mean being puzzled over the _Wildfire_'s destruction for a while, until she was fixed, deleting all blackbox recordings of the incident, wiping the flight recorder, the repair log of his lightbee, squabbling with Lister, who, though he hadn't asked yet, was bound to, and then – back to being Ace. Back out there, to a life so stressful that Kryten's worry balls would shrivel and die, back to the costume, the wig, the loneliness.

"Stay out of my head, you poor excuse for an AI."

"Oi! No need to get nasty."

"Just leave me be, Holly, all right?"

"Have it your way." And Holly left, without doing anything about the headache.

In the end, Rimmer was forced to climb out of the bed, stumble into the shower cabinet to find the first-aid box and swallow one of the nanite generated painkillers, even though his hologrammatic stomach was less than thrilled at the intake of real food, and then crawl back into bed, pulling the covers smelling of Kryten's favourite washing detergent and _Red Dwarf _ship issue synthetic over his head.

"_Arn? Arnie? Arnooold. Oi, bonehead!" _

_Arnold jerked out of his slumber, staring at the skylight above his bed – and straight into the leering face of his brother Howard, Frank hovering just behind him. They had broken open the skylight – but that was not the worst bit. The worst bit was that Howard was holding a glass with a very, very large and ugly spider, just ready to tip it over and down onto Arnie's bedsheets. He let out a tiny, undignified squeak and tried to scramble away – but he was tangled up in the sheets and didn't get far. _

_The spider dropped to the roaring laughter of his brothers. It sat there, just shy of his feet under the covers, stunned, staring at Arnie out of murderous black eyes. The boy had frozen in shock. He had not had any food for two days and had tried to sleep through the pounding headache and growling stomach, but how could he when that… thing was in the room. He stared, breath coming in short, sharp gasps, until he was full out hyperventilating, his brothers' laughter echoing eerily in his ears. _

_Then Howard dropped the glass, squishing the spider then and there – and they were gone. Arnie bit his lip until it bled to stop the scream dead in his throat, then scooted out of the bed, eyes fixed on the disgusting black splotch on his favourite sheets. He took his pillow with him and retreated into the furthest corner of the room, hugging the pillow, and unable to take his eyes off the… thing, not trusting it to be dead, his skull pounding with a headache that made his eyes water. _

_And suddenly, the spider rose off the sheets – twice, thrice, ten times as large as it had been, mandibles clicking as it advanced on Rimmer, who cowered in the far corner of the cargo hold, blocking its access to the only door into the station. He cradled his gun, knowing there was only one bullet left, and having no idea where to hit that horrible mutant GELF to put all other GELFs to shame. Susan was chattering away in his head, something about the exoskeleton – but he could hardly hear her over the rushing of blood in his ears. He took aim as the… thing scuttled closer and fired. The spider burst apart – bits and pieces scattering into all directions, sharp shards of chitin bouncing off his hard light form as he tried to shield his face with his arms._

_And then – everything around him exploded in the dizzying whirl of a dimension jump – only it wasn't. Lilac shards of matter, bits and pieces of dimensions, shot around him, not touching, but each fragment cutting into his innards as though someone had stuck a knife into his lightbee, and his head was splitting with a tearing sound, and finally he screamed and screamed and screamed-_

"For smeg's sake, Rimmer! Holly, do something! Wake him up!"

"I can't do that, Dave – I don't have access to his lightbee!"

Lister shook Rimmer by the shoulders again, and yelled straight into the hologram's ear: "Rimmer! Wake up!"

Finally, Rimmer shot upright, nearly butting Lister on the head – his eyes were wide with panic, his mouth still open for a scream which never came. Rimmer swallowed it down with a hiccough as he became aware of his surroundings, his features in control once more though he could not banish the haunted look entirely, his eyes glistening, jaw set and lips pressed together. He averted his gaze.

"What's going on!?" Cat burst into the room, Kryten hot on his heels. They both took in the scene with a single glance – how couldn't they. The room was not very large, nor were there any models dancing the hula in a corner to distract them from Rimmer, sitting on the bunk with hunched shoulders, and Lister, kneeling by his side, the hand that he had used to shake Rimmer awake resting on the mattress as if he wanted to place a comforting hand on the other man's arm but didn't.

"Hey, Toilet Brush Head! That's Ace's room. What are you doing in here?"

Rimmer shot the Cat a glare that was just the slightest bit shaky.

"Mr Rimmer, sir," Kryten began, then his gaze caught on Rimmer's red dressing gown. "Oh, sir – I don't recall washing that gown for you before – didn't you want me to starch it?"

"Oh, shut up, you animated vacuum cleaner," Rimmer said with fervour, which earned him another one of those odd looks from Lister.

"No, seriously." The Cat waved his hand about, his numerous rings glittering fetchingly. "We heard screaming. What's going on?"

"I had a smegging nightmare, that's what's going on! Now leave me alone."

Lister nudged his arm. "Come on, let's get back to the bunkroom. I'm sure Ace won't mind." He placed a bit of undue emphasis on _Ace_, but Rimmer got his meaning, locking a slightly desperate gaze with him before he swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

"Lister? What's going on?" They all stared at nano-Rimmer as he walked in, most certainly _not_ Ace. He instantly looked as though he wanted to sink through the floor. "Oh."

Kryten popped out his eyes, polishing them, before squeaking them back into his eye sockets and staring, open-mouthed. Cat just stared, his head oscillating from one Rimmer to the other. "That's Toilet Brush Head – I can tell from his smell." Cat jabbed a thumb towards nano-Rimmer, completely ignoring the glare. "Then he must be – Alphabet Head? But he died! And where is Ace?"

"_I _am Ace, you simple-minded feline," Rimmer snapped, not caring at all for the blank look that earned him.

"No seriously, why'd you bring him back? And where's Ace?"

Rimmer got to his feet. Enough was enough. "Would you try to understand, you narcissistic moron? I. Am. Ace."

"No seriously-"

Right, that was it. He couldn't stand this for one more minute or he'd snap. "Look, I'm not going to wait around until you've figured it out. You can do that on your own, or maybe Lister will enlighten you. You will be relieved you won't have to waste valuable napping time by showing me your stupid suits. I'm not going to stick around." He brushed past the three men at the door, stalking away down the corridor, never mind that he was not even wearing shoes, just the white socks that came with his pyjamas.

"Rimmer, wait!" Lister called after him, but the hologram did not even pause. Lister looked at the other Rimmer, who understood instantly. With a soft "right", he also turned and followed his alter ego down the corridor.

Kryten and Cat stared after them until they had disappeared around a corner, then looked back at Lister. The human sighed. "Look, I'll try and explain."

~oOo~

"Come again?"

"Cat, how many times? Ace died, and Rimmer took his place. I've been telling you – this has been going on for ages."

"I get that. Ace dies, and another Ace takes over."

"That's right."

"So what happened to him, and where did Alphabet Head come from? Didn't we drop his lightbee off in space?"

Lister groaned. "Listen – last time Ace visited us, _he_ died. Rimmer became 'im. 'e became Ace. And now 'e's back, only there are now two of them, because the nanites resurrected Rimmer along with the rest of the crew of _Red Dwarf_."

"So what happened to Ace?"

"Cat!" Lister ground his teeth. He could swear the Cat was being deliberately obtuse sometimes. "Ace is Rimmer. Rimmer became Ace. He is Ace. They are one and the same."

Kryten let out a strange, high pitched giggle, which earned him a glare from Lister. The mechanoid instantly shut himself up and looked ashamed. "I am sorry, Mr Lister. It is just such an extraordinary outlandish concept to grasp. Mr Rimmer becoming Ace – really, sir. Such a great joke."

"I'm _not_ kiddin' ye! Rimmer is Ace. That's why he was in Ace's room, in Ace's bunk, because he is Ace!"

"Now come on, bud. This is not funny anymore."

"'m not kiddin'!"

"Seriously? Alphabet Head? Are we talking about the same guy? You can't expect me to believe that, buddy."

Lister stood up, annoyed. "Sometimes I think Rimmer is right about you two, you know." And he walked out on them, leaving the cat and the mechanoid sitting in their chairs, stunned.

~oOo~

Rimmer found Ace – well, Rimmer – where he had expected to find him – in the very same place he always went to when he needed to think since they had free reign of _Red Dwarf_: the Observation Dome. The hologram had changed his clothes somewhere along the line, or asked Holly to change them, however that worked for holograms, and was now wearing a brim, blue military style tunic Rimmer himself could have gotten used to instead of his greyish brown ship issue uniform, and was staring out into space, hands dangling uselessly by his sides. He looked horrible – almost as bad as when Holly had first rebooted him.

"Hey," Rimmer said, and then had no idea how to go on.

Holo-Rimmer turned around to face him, leaning against the safety railings and crossing his arms. "Hey."

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened back there. I'd heard screaming and I thought-"

The other Rimmer shrugged. "It's okay. I had no idea how to explain you taking my place anyway."

"I haven't decided yet."

"Yes, you have, m'laddo. Who are you kidding?"

Rimmer didn't know how to reply to that. "How do you even do the voice?"

'Ace' raised an eyebrow, wrinkling his nose. "Of all the things you could ask me, that's the first you could think of?"

"It's important, isn't it?"

"Yes – but you just do it like we always do. And Susan always has soothers for your throat, if you need them."

"Who is she, then?"

"Oh, the _Wildfire_'s computer. She doesn't really have a name, but it's easier than calling her 'computer' all the time."

"Susan," Rimmer said, trying it out. It sat easily on his tongue.

'Ace' was watching him with a thoughtful expression, it was disquieting.

"Is there nothing you can do about the pain? You look horrible."

Holo-Rimmer seemed surprised for a moment that his alter ego could tell, but he caught himself quickly. "I'll go back to sleep once the excitement has blown over. It should give my lightbee a bit of time to repair some of the damage, bring my T-count back down."

"You could have the bunk – you know, my bunk. I wouldn't mind. And I won't bother you. I wanted to get some revision done, anyway."

'Ace' nodded. "Thanks."  
>"It's a shame you're dying, really. I think we could really get along."<p>

"No, believe me, it's better this way. Me and me – that never really worked out."

"But I will meet other Rimmers in other dimensions?"

"Oh yes. Beware of the female one. She is disgusting."

"Female Rimmers?"

"Just stay away from her."

~oOo~

Lister headed straight for the bunkroom, which he found locked with the code Rimmer and he used to keep the Cat and Kryten out. He let himself in, and came face to face with two Rimmers, one curled up on the bottom bunk, the other sitting at the table, an astronavigation book laid out before him and a finger pressed to his lips. "Be quiet, Listy. You don't want to wake him."

Lister dropped his hat on the table and slid into a chair. "I don't know what's gotten into Kryten and the Cat. They are bein' complete smegheads about this."

"What were you expecting?"

"Well, they could show some understanding for once."

Rimmer scoffed. "Seriously? A crash dummy and an inbred furball?"

"What's got you into such a good mood?"

"Look, Listy, why don't you go on and repair the _Wildfire_, eh? Then all our problems will be over."

"Hang on – which Rimmer are ye?"

Rimmer looked honestly startled. "You mean you can't tell?"

"Of course I can't smeggin' tell! You are identical!"

"No, we're not."

"Yes, you are. Smeggin' identical. If I didn't know one of you was the hologram and the other alive, there would be no tellin' you apart."

"But I have completely different memories to him!"

"Yeah, and how am I supposed to see that, man?"

"Look, if you want to keep fighting about whether it is possible to tell us apart, could you do it more quietly? I am trying to catch some sleep," the Rimmer on the bunk spoke up, shifting to his back.

"Sorry, Rimmer." Lister looked over at him. "Smeg, Rimmer, you look horrible. What's wrong, man? And don't say you're fine, because I can tell you aren't."

Rimmer moved an arm up to rest his head on the hand, settling more comfortable into the pillows. "It's just a headache, Listy."

"Didn't know you got those. Didn't know you got nightmares, either."

"Of course I get nightmares!" the Rimmer on the desk protested. "Do you think a lifetime of being bullied and failing at everything of importance isn't going to cause nightmares?"

Lister's glance travelled between them, feeling as though he was talking to some kind of optical illusion and half expecting to find the real, single Rimmer somewhere between them. "No, but you've never screamed before – and you sounded really terrified, too."

Both Rimmers remained silent, bearing identical expressions of mild discomfiture and shame.

"Would you smeggin' stop that? Ye're driving me crazy. Right, which one of you is Ace?"

"I am," they both said, at the same time, without even a second's hesitation from either of them.

Lister was about ready to tear out his hair, but the two Rimmers seemed to find it hilarious, both wearing the same stupid grin on their faces, with the exception, perhaps, of the fact that Lister could see the eyes of the Rimmer sitting opposite him sparkle mischievously while the other had his eyes closed. "Very clever, Rimmer. Now stop it before I get Holly to turn you into soft light."

Bunk-Rimmer sighed. "Very well, Listy, though it is not like he could, anyway."

"Why not?"

"I've made some improvements on the lightbee over the years. When it is at full power, it is completely independent from any computer mainframe. Holly can't mess with it unless I let him. It has been quite useful out there."

"You made improvements on your lightbee? How?"

"The _Wildfire_ is perfectly capable of fully hosting a hard light hologram – didn't you know?"

"No, man. I've really been concentrating on getting the AI back up – perhaps there are automated repair mechanisms."

Rimmer nodded. "There are. Anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah – get some rest, and stay away from Cat and Kryten. They've flipped, man – they are simply refusing to accept that you are Ace."

"Is that so strange?" nano-Rimmer asked. "Even I wouldn't believe it."

"Yeah, but they practically saw it with their own eyes. Besides, it is not like they are going to meet Ace if they walk around the ship now."

"Didn't you say Holly had uploaded the blackbox recordings?"

"Yeah?"

"Mind if I take a look?"

"You know the password?"

"Of course I know the smegging password. I'm Ace – or had you forgotten."

"Don't be like that, Rimmer."

"Just pass me that tablet thing, would you?" Rimmer held out his hand for the electronic reader his alter ego had been using to read in bed, even though it had originally found its way into their room while Rimmer had been a soft light hologram because it could be voice controlled.

Lister would never have stooped to playing fetch for Rimmer, but the hologram look so pale and worn that he decided to indulge him for once.

"The headphones as well, Listy. You don't need to hear this."

"No, but I want to, man! Your visit is the most exciting' thing that has 'appened in weeks!"

"Be that as it may, Lister, I cannot allow you to hear this. This is for the eyes of Aces only."

"What, the sound of you wanking away alone in your bunk?"

"Yes, let's stoop to lame jokes about my sex life, why don't we. Of course not, you moron! There is sensitive information in those blackbox recordings! Top secret information. Why do you think they were password protected in the first place?"

"For the same reason you hide your diary in the _A-Z of _Red Dwarf?"

Nano-Rimmer slammed his book down on the table. "How does he know that?!"

"Because he's read it. Aloud. To the Cat," Holo-Rimmer explained, hooking up the tablet to the connection socket in the wall of the bunk with the cables that came with it.

"Oi, you don't have to look so scandalised! You've read mine!" Lister told nano-Rimmer.

"Yes, but at least I had the common decency to do it sneakily behind your back!"

"That's what I said." Holo-Rimmer settled the tablet onto his knees. "Holly, can you patch the blackbox recordings through to the reader for me, please?"

"You got it, Arn."

"Thanks muchly."

Lister watched Rimmer punch away on the tablet, finding it incredibly strange that he actually seemed to know what he was doing, even though he was still doing it in a very Rimmer-like way. "Rimmer?"

"Hm?"

"I've been meanin' to ask – do ye enjoy bein' Ace, then? I mean I know you hate the wig and the voice an' all that, but do you enjoy it? You seem pretty eager to get back to it."

"Oh, it's fan-smegging-tastic, Listy. Just dandy. The excitement, the women – oh, the women! You wouldn't believe some of the things I've seen, Listy." Rimmer had never even looked up from the screen, and now proceeded to pluck in the headphones. "Right, here we go. I just need to check something."

Lister looked over to the other Rimmer, who hurriedly burrowed his nose in the astronavigation book. Lister shrugged and decided to leave them to it. He needed to sort things with Cat and Kryten, anyway.


	8. Convincing Rimmer

**A/N: **Only a shortish chapter this week. But I think I have enough of a buffer now to post at least every two weeks, if not necessarily every week. Hope there are still readers out there enjoying this! I would love to hear your thoughts now that the story is well on its way.

* * *

><p><strong>VIII. Convincing Rimmer<strong>

Rimmer lowered the tablet the moment Lister was gone, pulling the headphones off. "Finally."

His alter ego had also stopped reading, but was staring of into space – or rather, at the door that had closed behind Lister. "You were taking the smeg, weren't you, when you said it was fantastic. You lied."

"I already _told_ you how it is like."

"You realise this is doing nothing to convince _me_ to take your place."

Rimmer felt his own gaze becoming distant, but the forced himself back into the present, back to looking at the only potential successor he could hope for now. "Do you really want to be the one to break the chain?" he said, quietly, half quoting, and very aware how cruel it was to say that. How it turned what should have been an informed choice into no choice at all. He had always been one to bow to peer pressure, and this was much stronger.

The other Rimmer was staring at him. "Is that what Lister said to you before you became Ace?"

Rimmer did not feel it necessary to reply to that. "Look, it is not all bad. You won't screw up half as often as you're expecting to right now. Susan's been dealing with us for ages, she is very competent. As long as you become Ace, you'll be fine. Just use that confidence, and things will start dropping in your lap. Even the original Ace – he had a lot of skill in practical things, but I bet you his head was mostly filled with hot air."

"He must have passed his astronavs."

"No, he didn't. Never claimed he had, either. He kicked the education Father wanted for us into the bucket around the same time we tried to divorce our parents. Learned to fly in some backwater spaceport on Pluto. He happened to be on an experimental Space Corps craft when the pilot suffered a heart attack and died – he managed to divert it enough to crash it into the Channel instead of into Eastbourne, and that got him into the Corps. He went through basic training, but by that time, he was already a test pilot. Never sat his astronavs. He was merely dedicated to his duty – and brave enough to go into situations others wouldn't touch." He looked down at the tablet sitting against his knees, which had gone to screensaver. "Or stupid enough. Learned everything else in the field."

"Divert a fully functional craft for just a few miles? But all he needed to do was punch the buttons to fire up the side thrusters. Even I could have done that! Especially if I'd died if I hadn't tried."

"I know." Rimmer stretched his legs. "You know, _I _taught Kryten to fly the _Starbug_ after Lister had mangled him back together. Did I ever get a word of thanks? No. Did they ever let me even so much as touch the helm after I became hard light? No. I even managed to land that escape pod _and_ figured out the terraforming, though the cloning didn't go that well – actually, forget I ever said that. But I've been flying the _Wildfire _for ten years now – and she's arguably the most complicated ship out there. Certainly more complicated than this old crate. Besides, Holly is doing most of the actual flying around here."

"Did you ever wonder why Ace dropped everything at the first chance to leave his home dimension?"

"I don't think he had anything to lose by doing it – and everything, his entire reputation, if he hadn't. Look, I guess the multiverse just needs a superficial, annoying hero who breezes in saves the day _and_ gets all of the ladies even though he is really just a git."

Nano-Rimmer traced the title of his book with his finger. "If you had the chance to go back to being Ace – you know, if you weren't… – would you do it? Would you climb into the _Wildfire_ as soon as she was fixed and jump off to the next dimension, to save the day?"

Rimmer had been afraid of that question. He wasn't even sure what his answer should be. Surely he had to tell his successor that yes, he would do it without waiting even one second, that he couldn't wait to get back to being popular, being successful, being _liked_ and loved? Surely that had to be the truth, hadn't it? Why would he want to stay here, on this old crate full of smegheads who didn't like or respect him, anyway, from whom he had always wanted to get away? Why would he even want to be him, worthless, useless piece of – a thing as useless as himself had yet to be discovered. He missed the _Wildfire_ passionately, to a point where the ferocity of his grief surprised him. But what use were the successes, really? They weren't really his, were they? And he still wasn't an officer. He could just imagine his father's face had he known that Arnold had become one of those freelance superheroes he used to dream about instead of concentrating on his homework, and that he hadn't even done anything to earn the trust people throughout the multiverse had in him. In fact, he had gotten trillions of them killed! What use was it all, the charade, the make-belief, tricking himself, tricking everyone, when underneath it all, he was still the same cowardly good-for-nothing? Some part of him, deep inside, told him that he had to stop doing, wanting what everyone expected of him and start doing what he wanted to do, what he did well, but that part was far too miniscule to be noticed.

His alter ego was still waiting, watching him carefully.

Rimmer closed his hand so tightly around the tablet that he expected the casing to crack and lied through his teeth – wasn't lying to himself what he had always done? "I would. In a heartbeat."

"Really?"

"Why do you think I was so eager to get the _Wildfire_ repaired? I couldn't stand Lister's company for longer than I have to."

Nano-Rimmer didn't look too convinced. "But you're dying."

"Doesn't mean I want to do it under Lister's nose, does it? He's seen me die once, on video, and I am not going to give him the live performance, thank you very much."

"I'll do it", his alter ego said quietly, "I'm going to become Ace."

"I know. For now, let's wait until the dust has settled and the _Wildfire _has been repaired."


	9. The Wildfire

**IX. The _Wildfire_**

Lister had given up on the Cat and Kryten, both of whom had politely refused to share his company after the recent revelations. Instead, he busied himself by getting as much of the _Wildfire_ on board _Red Dwarf_ as he could gather up. He was sure he had missed some screws and the odd little bits on the rocky surface of the moon, but he soon had the entire ship, as far as he could tell, in the cargo bay.

It looked like a pile of junk.

Lister had no idea whatsoever how to even begin fixing it, so he began by setting up the rear cabin. The cabin had survived largely intact, as far as the living area was concerned, but the exterior hull had struck a leak and the drivepods were hanging off. Lister extracted and disconnected the interior cabin and used a cargo crane to manoeuvre it into one corner of the bay, where it looked like a tiny and very ugly log cabin, before he climbed into the ruined cockpit and continued his work on the mainframe. With a charger cable from Holly, he was able to circumvent the power shortage and boot up the computer hardware, getting started on reconnecting and replacing the damaged circuits. He had no idea if he put her together the right way. Holly's occasional comments weren't much help, and he might just as well have been turning the AI into a calculator or a bomb.

Just as he was about to connect a monitor and give it a go, Rimmer found him – well, it was Ace, really, back in uniform and wig. He stepped over to look at Lister's pile of cables, and Lister felt suddenly incredibly nervous, as if Ace was still someone he had to impress, not only the very same Arnold J. Rimmer with whom he had shared a bunk ever since arriving on _Red Dwarf_. He couldn't even be entirely sure which Rimmer it was at first glance, but the way he maintained his distance and the electronic buzz of simulated warmth from his hard light body, only obvious when he was peering over Lister's shoulder, told him all he needed to know.

"Any success, Skipper?" he asked, completely Ace.

Lister stared for a moment, startled, then placed his screwdriver on the ground. "Rimmer, man, I'm sorry about the others. I'll get it into their heads eventually, I swear. But it's jus' me now, an' I know ye're exhausted. You don't have t' do this. Jus' be you."

"'fraid I don't know what you are talking about, Skipper," Ace said, rocking back onto his heels in a gesture that was only a faint echo of Rimmer's. "Anything I can help you with?"

_Now I've got ye_, Lister thought. "Ye know, ye bein' hard light and nearly indestructible an' all, I could really use someone t' clear up some of the debris under the front window. I did'na really wan' t' touch it because of the glass – it might come down." Lister fully expected Rimmer to protest, to declare that _he_ most certainly wouldn't go in there, then. Consequently, he was completely flummoxed when 'Ace' just nodded and climbed past him into the ruined pilot's chair. There, he wordlessly began to collect loose bits and pieces that weren't connected to what they should be anymore, tossing glass shards out of the shattered windscreen and passing the important looking bits back to Lister.

Lister was too stunned to think of a suitable reaction, so they ended up working silently side by side for a while, stillness only interrupted by the clattering of equipment, the soft _ti-ling_ of the glass shards and the _kablunk_ of Lister shifting larger pieces of circuitry around. _Ti-ling, ti-ling, ti-ling-ling, kablunk, ti-ling, kablunk, kablunk, ti-ling, kablunk, kablunk. KABLUNK. _

Lister had just finished closing up the casing of what he assumed was the computer's motherboard and main memory, which was now connected to a screen with only one crack and receiving power from Holly when he realised that the _ti-ling_s had stopped. He peered around the backrest of the pilot's chair in the confined space and caught Ace with one hand gently closed around the control column, the other pinching the bridge of his nose. The consoles were mostly clear, some cables hanging off here and there, the odd missing button, but no more debris.

"You okay?"

Ace jumped a bit at hearing Lister's voice so close, then visibly shook himself out of it, straightening. "Perfectly, Skipper. Just getting a bit sentimental."

"I was talkin' to Rimmer, actually," Lister said, annoyed. It was almost like talking to a man possessed – like there where two people sitting before him, not one. But there was only one, wasn't there? Rimmer had become Ace, and even if the others did not believe him, he was determined to prove it, wasn't he?

"Everything tickety-boo, Listy." It was incredibly strange hearing Rimmer's voice in this get-up, like someone dropping out of a role in the middle of the play. Even without Rimmer's usual expression, the cheerfulness was so blatantly faked that Lister felt he needed to call him out on it.

"Ye're not, though, are ye? Ye never are when ye say that."

Rimmer, as always, ignored him. "How is it going?" he asked, his Ace voice sliding back.

"I was gonna try boot her up. She not connected to any systems yet, but maybe she's a bigger help than Holly."

Ace slid out of the pilot chair and joined him in front of the screen, taking in the amateurish work Lister had done. "The old girl won't like that you've disconnected her from the database, but let's give it a go."

"I thought the main memory was in there."

"That's only personality and recent logs."

"Oh."

"Don't worry, Skipper. You did a great job. Just start her up."

Lister flicked the power switch, feeling incredibly strange. The screen came to life, then stabilised on the flickering image of a fairly young and attractive woman. She had stunning eyes, a tasteful short hairstyle with a simple, but effective accessory sitting just above her right ear and wore just a hint of delicate make-up. If she had been a fruit, she would have been a mango – exotic, delicious, juicy and refreshing, but nothing too adventurous.

"Voice recognition should be working," Holly commented from somewhere, then disappeared mumbling into the ether.

"Right." Lister nervously rubbed his hands on his trousers, trying to get the grease off – as if he were in the presence of a real woman he wanted to impress. "Give me your registration, please."

"_Wildfire_, Dimension Ship 001," the computer said, devoid of emotion. "Personality disk booting." Suddenly, a whole string of grotesque expressions flittered across her face, then she seemed to register Lister's presence. "Oh. It's you."

Lister grinned his loveliest grin. "Hiya. Do you mind jus' checking the connections are workin'?"

"All working."

"Thanks, uh-"

"Oh, she doesn't have a name," Rimmer butted in from behind Lister in his normal voice. "Though she doesn't mind Susan."

Lister looked at him over his shoulder, was put off by the wig and looked back to the screen. "Susan? That's what you've been callin' 'er?"

"Yes. What wrong with that?"

"Oh, nothin'."

"It's not like 'Holly' is a perfectly sensible name for a computer, is it?"

"All right, quiet down. 's just she doesn't seem like a Susan, is all."

"I'll have you know she can be quite caring. She's not the brainless supermodel she looks." Rimmer raised a placating hand towards the screen. "No offense!"

"Arnold," Susan said, simply, her eyes rolling skywards for a moment. Then, she gasped, and Rimmer soundlessly collapsed. He crashed right into Lister and send them both tumbling out of the cockpit that was no longer attached to the rear. As they impacted, Lister found himself suddenly overlapping with the hologram, Rimmer having reverted to soft light. Lister blinked through the curls of Ace's wig at the back of his head and tried to see the lightbee which he could feel somewhere on his stomach. Lister closed his hand around it – and Rimmer phased out of existence.

"What the smeg?" Lister scrambled to his feet, clutching the lightbee. He didn't bother with brushing himself down, but he wiped his hand and then the lightbee on his trousers to get the grease off. Then, he climbed back into the cockpit. "Susan, what happened?"

"I have re-established Ace's hyperlink. It must have come as a bit of a shock."

"What hyperlink?"

"There is a mental connection between any hologrammatic Ace and the _Wildfire_. Didn't he tell you?"

"No." Lister looked down at the lightbee. He had a feeling that there were a whole bunch of things Rimmer had never told him. He never even knew if the stuff he'd told him about his childhood had been true or whether he had made half of it up. It sometimes just seemed too absurd – the traction machine? Hopping on Sundays? The Space Scouts trying to eat him? Did Rimmer really expect him to believe all that? But, and that was why Lister always kept his mouth shut, what if it _was _all true? Rimmer could be incredibly sensitive, and while Lister enjoyed winding him up to no end, he never really wanted to actually hurt him.

He had regretted what had happened after that psi-moon, and while he had never really apologised, all three of them had tried to integrate Rimmer, who had been more than a little traumatised even though he never admitted it, more into their activities afterwards – anything to show him that they had never really meant anything they had said.

Lister had been _really_ sorry about that smeg with the mushrooms – he had even apologised then, because the things could really have harmed Rimmer physically. Still, he hardly was there to witness Rimmer's complete breakdown a day afterwards. He had been complete out of it after PD – for which Rimmer had never shown up – and more than a bit smegged off at him for that, and had passed out on his bunk, fully clothed. He had woken up to Rimmer shouting, and had promptly banged his head on the roof of his bunk, but his annoyance had disappeared when he found that Rimmer had collapsed in some kind of hysteric fit: Already in a hospital gown, his bunkmate had been kneeling on the floor, face hidden in his hands, rocking back and forth and sobbing. Lister had called the paramedics, and they had taken Rimmer away. Lister had been tired enough to pass out again on the table, waiting for him to get back. When Rimmer had, it had been early morning, and he had looked like death warmed up. The paramedic who wheeled him in clearly was glad to get rid of him. He had manoeuvred Rimmer, who could hardly stand on his own, not too gently onto his bunk and had left, with only a snappy 'Unfit for duty for a week. Leave him alone.' towards Lister. Lister had thought it incredibly insensitive of him to blame Lister (even though it had been his fault, and at least somebody had believed Rimmer for once), but he did as he was told. By his own definition, at least. He eventually was able to coax out of Rimmer that he had had his stomach pumped, again, and his whole blood exchanged, again, and had every psy-test run the medi-comp could get done, which eventually ended with him being declared drug-free but suffering from a complete mental and physical burn-out, which required a week of complete rest towards recovery. Rimmer didn't do rest well. He was the kind of person who always wished he were less stressed, but seemed to live on a steady level of anxiety because that was who he was. Seeing him so tired out was strange, particularly because he was too tired to even sulk or ignore Lister. He presumably spend the days hardly budging from his bunk while Lister was off at PD, and when Lister came back, exhausted, they would sometimes even manage some light conversation. That had been a first.

Lister wondered if Rimmer's lack of resentment towards the others' reaction was a sign that he wasn't well at all. He clearly wasn't perfect, but Lister had assumed that it was just the shock. But maybe the lightbee was more badly damaged than he claimed it was. Lister turned it over in his hand. The casing looked fine. A few chips and scrapes, a bit stained (now that it had been in Lister's palm), but intact. He looked back at the monitor. "What should I do?"

"Let him go and step back, I'll reboot his program."

"But I have disconnected you from most systems."

"The hologrammatic unit is installed on my motherboard."

"Really? Why's that?" Lister thought of the gigantic holo suite of _Red Dwarf_, and marvelled for a moment at the magnificence of the dimension ship.

"It was Arnie's idea." Somehow, her voice communicated that she meant this Arnold Rimmer, and none of his alter egos. "It allows his program to run even when there is little power or a fault in any other system. It's part of the _Wildfire_'s heart."

"That was Rimmer's idea?" Lister said, then replayed the words in his head and was suddenly glad that Rimmer was not around to hear them. He had to be the one who believed in the smeghead, hadn't he? Lister placed the lightbee on the ground and tried to give Rimmer a bit of space in the cramped cockpit. The lightbee came to life, hovered into the air and Rimmer flashed back into existence with surprising speed. Lister had no time to wrap his head around the fact that the _Wildfire _had rebooted him as Rimmer, not Ace, since the hologram's first breath was something between a gasp and a sob, and he tumbled down into the pilot chair, hanging on for dear life.

"Rimmer, man, are you all right?"

"Just fine," Rimmer gasped out, pressing his hand against his midsection where Lister knew the lightbee was hovering, even though he couldn't see it anymore.

"I don't think I believe ye."

"When did you happen to become so insightful, Listy?"

"No offense, Rimmer, but people don't usually look like that when they are perfectly fine."

Rimmer let go of the chair and dropped his hand into his lap, trying for casual, but his face remained pale and drawn. "I just didn't think the _Wildfire _could support me, that's all. It's a bit of a shock."

"She was saying about a hyperlink…"

Rimmer looked at the screen, and Susan looked back at him, but neither of them commented. Eventually, the hologram glanced back at Lister. "Be careful where you stick your greasy fingers from now on. And don't even think about messing with the motherboard."

"Aye, aye, sir!" Lister replied with a mock salute, though it was only mildly mocking.

Rimmer shot him a weakened glare before pushing himself to his feet and making his way out of the _Wildfire _and out of the cargo bay.


	10. The Choice

**A/N: Here you go, new chapter! Thanks for the favs and follows!**

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><p><strong>X. The Choice<strong>

Rimmer nudged the _Wildfire _to change him back to Ace as soon as he set foot outside the cargo hold. Not that he really wanted to be the smug smeghead just now, but he felt the other two members of the crew left him no choice. Maybe he could somehow wind back time, make sure they never found out – no. Wishful thinking had never gotten him anywhere, and often enough, hard work had failed him, as well. He hoped that Kryten's tact and the Cat's stupidity would prevent them from addressing him when he was Ace, though he could almost hear their mocking: _Fake! _

It felt good to be connected to Susan again, even though there was a slight, painful buzzing around the edges of the hyperlink, which either originated in his own failing programme or the _Wildfire_'s damaged systems. The connection was a constant, a source of comfort he needed bitterly and would loath to give up when the other Rimmer took over, even though it would only be for a few dying moments. Perhaps he'd have days, because he was just that lucky that he would suffer as long as possible, but he was determined not to allow Holly to host him again. He would simply wait until the power of his lightbee ran out or the damage ate the circuitry from the inside, and then he would fade away into non-existence, where there would be neither guilt nor moral dilemma to haunt him anymore. It was just possible that the lack of the presence of the familiar AI would be the killing blow, anyway.

Rimmer ambled aimlessly through the corridors, but he still managed to meet the other Rimmer inside of five minutes since setting out from the cargo bay. Of course, nano-Rimmer was oblivious to the fact that he would have preferred not to talk to his alter ego just now, and fell into easy step beside him.

If Rimmer was honest, he didn't really want to look that other him into the eyes ever again, not after he had been so cruel to him. He could have kept his mouth shut, of course. Never mention the succession of Aces, just take the _Wildfire_, if he lived to see her fixed, and run, and never return. But he hadn't, because he didn't want it to be his fault that the line of Aces was cut off, no more now than when he had first become Ace for that very reason. And he hadn't, because he was selfish, and cowardly, and he wanted to die in his home dimension.

He also wanted to fall back into his old pattern and shout at his alter ego until he went away, but he remembered the last such exchange very well and he had a feeling that by now he deviated so much from the original template that he would lose the fight against nano-Rimmer, who had only been in existence for such a short time. To think that he was looking at 600 years, and this Rimmer was perhaps a year old? Two? It was probably fortunate that neither of them looked their age.

"Do you need to teach me anything to be Ace?" Rimmer suddenly asked, out of the blue, and the hologram almost gave in to the natural impulse of telling him that he really wasn't the person to ask. Perhaps it was the _Wildfire_ at the back of his mind that stopped him.

"I do. And there are a few things you need to know – but Susan will bring you up to speed soon enough. In fact, you could go down and talk to her now, Lister has been getting her up and running."

Nano-Rimmer looked dubious. "Really."

"It's not perfect, but she will be able to tell you the basics. Fill you in on the mythology." Rimmer allowed himself a slight sneer. Eventually, his 'heir' would need to know about the disaster, but like everything his predecessors had done, it would not be a proper memory, just something skirting around the edges of a story and an experience – like a bad dream, but enough of a reference so he would remember people and places, and respond accordingly to those that remembered him. Not that there were any people left that remembered him, his Ace, because their dimensions had all been torn apart. A fine contribution he had made!

"Okay, fair enough." Nano-Rimmer stopped, and Rimmer knew he was about to say something else, but he just kept walking, quickening his pace, until he turned a corner and proceeded to lose himself on the diesel decks.

"Arnie."

Rimmer contemplated not responding to the _Wildfire_'s soft call, but the thought of losing her again, soon and inevitably, was enough to let him overcome his reticence out of fear of being chided.

"I hear you," he responded mentally, sitting down in front of one of the ancient engines. They had a vaguely steampunk feeling about them, and he had always felt that his interest in them slotted in nicely between his passion for telegraph poles and his love for vintage cars.

"Oh, Arnie."

Of course she could hear his thoughts even when he was not talking to her – he was, after all, not a human being who was entirely alone with his thought anymore. He was a computer programme, and for a computer as sophisticated as the _Wildfire_, however crippled she might be right now, it was no great feat to read the algorithms running in his lightbee. "Why did you do it? Why did you reinitiate the link? It nearly destroyed you in the first place."

"Arnie, are you sure?"

A question, so simple, but with so many layers of meaning that Rimmer could scarcely wrap his head around it. Rimmer felt a knot rising up in his throat and he was absurdly glad that there was no one around to see him, and that he wasn't forced to actually speak. He was pretty sure that he made a terribly pathetic Ace right now. "Is there anything you could do?"

"I can keep you going. But it will never go away."

"Holly said he could erase my memory."

"So could I. Will it bring them back to life, Arnie?"

"No."

"Do you want to forget about the driveplate?"

Rimmer leant back until his head banged uncomfortably against the engine. He had given it much thought. Ever since he had Lister erase all memory of ever having had the false memory of Lise Yates and ended up knowing about it anyway. If such a tiny change had caused so much, he'd wondered what would happen if he erased Gazpacho Soup Day from his memory. He'd wondered what would happen if he no longer remembered the driveplate incident. He wondered who he would be if he erased the two single most important events of his whole life, or death, as it were, from his memory. Nano-Rimmer had shown him what he would be without the accident, without dying, and he wasn't entirely sure he liked it. But then, erasing his memory wasn't like making the event itself disappear. He would be stuck wondering how he had died, what had happened to the crew, and eventually Lister would fling it in his face, anyway. And maybe, just maybe, he was a touch masochistic.

He had not hesitated in the case of Lise Yates, because that had been a false memory in the first place. This was different.

"No," he answered, as if Susan didn't already know. He had been avoiding pain in the case of Lise, because he was never supposed to feel that way, and because he couldn't get over the fact that those were really Lister's memories. He didn't feel it would be fair to just erase the memories of his own screw-ups.

"It wasn't your fault, Arnie," the _Wildfire _whispered, sounding profoundly sad.

"It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been dimension jumping."

"No, Ace, I am not going to lead this discussion with you. I know you will never stop beating yourself up about it. I could erase it – but it would all have to go, because you wouldn't understand. You would always keep asking, wondering why you were back on _Red Dwarf_, why someone else took your place when you were still alive. You would think you'd failed. I don't want to do this to you, Arnie. But if you ask me to, I will."

"What do you mean, all of it?"

"The last ten years. Your time as Ace."

Rimmer was tempted to exclaim that he _had_ failed. That however many lives he might have saved, he had brought it all crashing down inside of a few hours, with a dimensional tear following in his wake. He didn't, because that was not the object here. The object was that he had grown, just a tiny bit, and even he could see that, because ten years ago, he had somehow gathered the courage to become Ace, however often he liked to claim that he never really had a choice. He could have hidden in some corner of the multiverse and never emerged again, but he hadn't. And that, in and off itself, was something he never wanted to forget. "No."

"What, then?"

"Leave me. Take him, and leave me. I'd rather die."

The _Wildfire_ didn't respond directly, but Rimmer could feel her projecting warmth and comfort and love directly into his lightbee, and all he wanted to do was curl up and weep. He could feel her grief, as well, and he couldn't quite believe it. He would have thought she would be glad to get rid of him, to have someone who might be easier to manage because he was less damaged in the first place – for nano-Rimmer, the driveplate had never really happened, the trauma of dying had never happened. He felt a strange sense of déjà vu, remembering the surreal circumstances of his 'burial' as he left to become Ace, and, just for a moment, Lister had made him believe that he would be missed. He had never been sure how much of it had been a lie, an act, to push him into his role as Ace, to trap him – but he was sure now that the _Wildfire_ meant it. Because she had never, ever lied to him, and he didn't think that could be said for anyone else he had encountered in his 600 years of miserable existence.

"I'm sorry", he whispered out loud, and continued mentally, "but you'll like him. He's me, really."

"He is just as much an alternate version as any in any other dimension, Arnie. You are unique."

"He's coming down to see you."

"I know."

Rimmer nodded, then remembered that the _Wildfire _couldn't see it, but didn't bother to verbalise his response after that – she was in his thoughts. He had to admit he felt better since his connection with the ship had been reinitiated. Holly had given him a bit of a power burst before, but it was nothing like the constant support he received from the _Wildfire_. He believed her when she said that she could keep him going but he was frankly too terrified to risk it. He was a coward during the best of times, and he didn't dare enter a situation as Ace when he knew that he really only was running from a terminal corruption of his data. If something like the crash happened again, or he was cut off from the _Wildfire _by some other means, which had happened before, there was no telling how quickly he would succumb, and it would probably be before he could resolve the situation, let alone find a replacement. Sometimes he wondered whether that urge was really driven by his own guilt, or whether the _Wildfire _was messing with his head, but he never allowed that thought to take hold. If he hadn't decided to trust her, he would have gone mad a long time ago, and so far she had done nothing to betray his trust – contrary to some other people he knew.

"He is here," Susan suddenly announced, startling Rimmer out of his musings. He pushed himself to his feet laboriously.

"Well?"

"Oh, Arnie. He isn't you."

Rimmer had enough. "Don't. Don't you dare tell me that I am a better Ace than he is, because I don't want to hear it. I'm dying; the least you can do is to show me a bit of respect by not starting to lie to me now!"  
>She retreated to the back of his mind, a glimmer of comfort and sadness, and Rimmer set off, trying to pace off the turmoil of emotions scorching through his lightbee.<p> 


	11. Hide

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay. This story will get finished, even if it takes me much longer than anticipated. Hope you still enjoy it! Here, have two chapters for a change!**  
><strong>

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><p><em>XI. Hide<em>

Lister hadn't really expected Rimmer to return again after he had strode out, even though he really felt the urge to keep bugging the hologram until he stopped talking smeg and finally told the truth. Not that there was a great chance of that happening, ever: Lister could tick off the instances when Rimmer had actually told the full, naked truth on one hand.

But least of all had he expected the other Rimmer to turn up. Lister immediately felt guilty for thinking about nano-Rimmer that way, because it was like saying he wasn't real. There was no denying that Lister had felt that way at first, when Rimmer had first sauntered into their room, alive and oblivious to the three million years that had passed since he had last been as much. However, while he had always wondered what had become of the Rimmer who had become Ace, he always felt that he had more of a connection to nano-Rimmer.

That Rimmer now stood in the cargo hold, staring at the ruins of the _Wildfire_, but immediately came over when he spotted Lister.

"Listy! How is it going?"

"Ah, man." Lister wiped his hands on his trousers, letting the wires be for a moment. "Honestly? Not that good – but don't tell Rimmer. He's-" Yes, what was he? Troubled? Sick? Lister shook his head. "Jus' don't tell 'im."

"I heard you'd gotten the AI up and running."

"Don't tell me Rimmer's been singing my praises."

Rimmer just crossed his arms. "Have you?"

"Yeah. She's been a great help. But even so, this could take years – an' Kryten's not exactly helping either!" The mechanoid had been down earlier, had had a five minute chat with Susan, and then had left in a huff, or as close as Kryten got to it, anyway. Lister had no idea what had gotten his circuits in a twist, and he didn't really care to find out, not while he was still so angry with his fellow crewmen.

Rimmer didn't say anything. He just joined Lister in the ruined cockpit and stood by the pilot chair as though he didn't dare to sit down. "Can I talk to her?"

Lister was honestly surprised. "I s'ppose. Not that she's been saying much. Really, Holly is a chatterbox by comparison."

"I meant in private, Lister."

"Oh! Right. If you must." Lister's curiosity was piqued, but he decided it would have to wait till some other time. He gathered up his tools. "I'll just see what I can do with the drivepots. Tell her to stop me if I do something wrong."

"Yes, get out already, Lister."

Lister shot a final glance at Susan, who had not said a word during the whole exchange, then climbed out of the wreck. As he turned his back, he just managed to glimpse Rimmer out of the corner of his eye, settling down in the pilot chair almost reverently.

Lister never got around to taking a look at the drivepots. As he approached one of the powerful engines, a red light suddenly began flashing, and Holly's face appeared on every screen. "Holly! What the smeg?!"

Rimmer was also back outside. "What's going on?"

"Dudes, you might want to come to the auxiliary drive room."

Lister exchanged a quick glance with Rimmer and they both set off in a brisk walk. Holly had not sounded overly alarmed, but someone or something had engaged the red alert, and that alone was a reason to hurry up.

They found the Cat and Kryten in the auxiliary control room, and, to everyone's surprise, Rimmer – or, rather, Ace, even though he bore an expression of disgust that was very much Rimmer.

"Two minutes! That's an improvement!" he said as the two of them stumbled in, barely glancing up from where he was leaning over the console.

"Smeg off, Rimmer," Lister said, more out of reflex than anything else, and was rewarded with two identical glares from both Rimmers.

They had discovered the auxiliary control after they had returned to the abandoned _Red Dwarf_ from the parallel universe and had decided to keep using it because it was far more practical than the vast main drive room, and it actually offered manual piloting similar to that of _Starbug_ if they needed it.

The Cat was sitting in one of the pilot chairs and looking put out by Ace's presence. To be fair, Ace seemed to be the only one actually doing something, while Kryten just hovered in the background and Holly was beginning to look mildly worried.

"What's going on?" Lister slid into the second chair, trying not to interrupt Ace, who was oscillating between a look of intense concentration and one of mild panic.

"Simulants," Ace ground out.

"They are just at the edge of our sensor range, Mr Lister, sir," Kryten added.

"And that's bad?" Rimmer asked.

"Oh smeg, I am sorry, man. I'd forgotten you'd never met them." Lister shot nano-Rimmer an apologetic glance.

Before Kryten could launch into his usual exposition, Ace straightened. "A bit bad, yes," he said, still in Rimmer's voice. "They are bio-mechanical beings whose favourite sport is to capture, torture and kill humans. Though considering how few humans are left in some dimensions, they have been… experimenting."

Lister couldn't quite get past the fact that Rimmer had never sounded so competent before, but concentrated on what Ace had actually been doing with the controls. The readouts didn't make sense to him. "What did you…?"

Ace ignored him. "Now, Holly."

"As you say, Arn."

In a flash, everything went dark, and Holly's screens remained stubbornly black. The Cat shook the control column which he really only had grasped to look cool in annoyance. "Hey, Alphabet Head! What did you do? All power is gone!"

"Silent running," the two Rimmers said in unison. The Cat gaped at Lister and Lister gaped at the two of them. Ace shot a glance at his alter ego and folded his arms defiantly. "Simulants. Best course of action: run or hide."

"Are you sure this is wise, Mr Rimmer?" Kryten's hand fluttered uselessly over the dead controls of the sensor relay. "We cannot see them."

"You wouldn't be asking the question if you had no idea that I was Rimmer, would you?" Ace spat out, infusing his voice with so much venom that Lister felt he had to revise his impression that he had taken the reaction the Cat and Kryten had shown to his revelation surprisingly well.

Kryten, at least, had the decency to look sufficiently chastised, and fell silent.

"Unless _Red Dwarf _has gained a set of impressive engines while I was gone, which it hasn't, or you wouldn't still be stuck in deep space, we hide. You do not want to get into a battle with Simulants."

The question _Have you been?_ sat on the tip of Lister's tongue, but he bit it down. "How are the chances they'll fly right past?"

"Miniscule."

"Oh, great. Just our luck," Rimmer commented acerbically, and suddenly his alter ego snapped to rigid attention.

"Get down into the _Wildfire. _Now!"

Everyone else look just as shocked as Lister felt about the suddenly shift in the hologram's voice, turning him fully into Ace Rimmer, saviour of the multiverse, hero extraordinary, and an all-around amazing guy who was used to being obeyed.

Rimmer, being Rimmer, did not budge, even though a look of panic flashed over his face. "Why?"

"Because they mustn't find two of us, Arn! Go! She will keep you safe! Can you at least hide?"

Rimmer shot a final panicked look at Lister, then turned on his heels and ran, darting away down the corridor and disappearing round the corner.

Ace turned back towards the drive room and laid a hand on the Cat's chair. "Do you mind, buddy?"

The Cat made space for him, looking flummoxed.

Ace slid into the drive seat, pressed a few buttons and suddenly Kryten's panel lit up. The mechanoid let out a high-pitched squeak. "They've been heading towards us! How did you know?"

Ace gritted his teeth. "Instinct, Kryts."

Lister had enough. "Rimmer-"

"Not now, Skipper." Ace pressed a few more buttons. "Holly – any chance _Red Dwarf _could throw something at them?"

Holly appeared on the screen above their heads. "I could dump garbage on them. Other than that, we're pretty much screwed, Arn."

"Do it. We need to buy him time."

Holly disappeared again, leaving an oppressive silence hanging over the drive room.

Lister cleared his throat. "Tell me you are not just tryin' to save your own life in a way."

"Apologies, Skipper. No time to explain. Kryts, find a cupboard and disassemble yourself. They are not after supplies, scan shows they are already stocked to the gills. They should leave you alone."

Kryten stood and left, hesitating only for a brief moment in the doorway, but he didn't dare questioning Ace again.

"Cat – go down into the holds of your people. Chances are they won't come looking for you there. Don't come out again until Lister comes to get you."

The Cat sniffed. "What about my suits?"

"Sorry, buddy. You'll have to leave them. I'll make sure they are safe."

"Thanks, bud." The Cat shot a final glance at Lister before slinking away smoothly. The door sizzled shut behind him, making Lister jump.

"What the smeg, Rimmer?"

"I'm sorry, Listy," Rimmer said, in his own voice, and then went back to pressing seemingly random buttons.

"Are ye just goin' to let the Simulants take over _Red Dwarf_? You're still a smeggin' coward!"

"Would you listen to yourself, Lister?! If I am such a coward, then explain to me why I am still here while sending everybody else to safety!"

"That's… that's what ye've been doin'?"

"Yes. Glad it finally sank in."

"Smeg, Rimmer, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have-"

Rimmer shook his head sharply. "There's nothing I can do to hide you. The Simulants have probably already spotted you."

"What about the other Rimmer?"

"Lister, nobody knows that Ace is actually a hologram."

"Now, hang on – what the smeg-" Lister suddenly grasped what Rimmer was actually saying. "No way am I goin' down without a fight! Is that how you worked as Ace? Getting everyone to safety you could an' then jus' give up on the rest?!"

He never got his answer, or if he did, he didn't remember later. All he remembered was a pained expression on Rimmer's face, and then blackness.


	12. Prisoners

**A/N: **Just a fair warning: this and the next few chapters contain the most violent scenes of the story, though nothing above original _Red Dwarf _level, I think.

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><p><em>XII. Prisoners<em>

Rimmer came to with a flash, sensation rushing back inside of a second. He blinked away the white spots before his vision, and tried to banish the white noise whistling in his head to the back of his mind. Something had happened to his link with the _Wildfire_. It had been bad before, but now it was damaged, or blocked, and the residue of the cut connection was doing its best to induce a headache. Not to mention the fact that his lightbee sent pulses of pain throughout his body, though he hadn't yet figured out why. He hoped it was only the ongoing corruption but if felt different – like something was suppressing his functions, rather than the piercing pain of before.

He was strapped to a table raised to forty-five degree, which was definitely not good news. Rimmer tugged at the ropes binding his wrists above his head and found them coarse and unyielding. He could see his boots if he raised his head a little, and of course his ankles were trapped in shackles.

Rimmer panicked.

He knew he shouldn't. He knew it would shoot his T-count through the roof and put him in danger of a hologrammatic heart attack. He knew his lightbee couldn't handle it in his present state. He knew he should be Ace and shrug it off, and think of an escape plan. He knew all that, but it didn't help when he also knew that he was terrified of physical torture, that a situation like this could only get worse, that there was a gap in his memory, that people could try quite insanely painful things when they found that his hard light drive was not easily damaged.

"Hello?" he asked into the oppressive silence, hating the sound of his own small, high-pitched voice. It was all he could manage with his breathing just that far away from hyperventilation.

Suddenly, there was a heavy groan somewhere behind him.

Rimmer craned his neck, but couldn't see a thing. "Anyone there?" he tried again.

"Rimmer? Is that you?"

Lister! He sounded close by, probably behind him. Rimmer didn't know whether to be terrified or relieved. "Of course it smegging is me! What the smeg is going on?" He remembered the Simulants heading for them. He remembered trying to keep it together by being Ace. He remembered sending his alter ego away so he would be safe – which was probably the single most stupid thing he had ever done. Because there was only one reason why a Simulant ship would turn up in this sector where there were no derelicts, no resources and where there should not have been any life (and he had checked, and checked again the instant the _Wildfire _had told him what Holly's sensors had picked up). The Simulants were there because they had picked up either the _Wildfire_'s energy signature, though that was unlikely considering the damage she had sustained, or had noticed the sealing of the dimensional rift. And if the Simulants in this universe went through an even marginally similar development as the others he had encountered, they were after Ace, and they were after the dimension jumping technology. Because once you had established yourself as the supreme being, you had to find new hunting grounds. And Rimmer had seen first-hand to what that could lead, and he couldn't let that happen. So, he had sent nano-Rimmer to the _Wildfire_ in the hope that she would take him on and had gone and put himself in the line of fire. Because he was dying anyway, that had to be it. He wasn't sacrificing himself for others. That couldn't be actually happening.

Rimmer tucked at the ropes again, then realised that Lister had never actually answered. "Listy?"

"Ace thought you'd be safe."

For a moment, that statement made no sense whatsoever to Rimmer. Then, he pieced it together. Lister could probably see him no more than he could see Lister, and so he had come to the conclusion that he was nano-Rimmer. Rimmer wasn't sure whether he should set him right.

Lister just kept talking. "Smeg, we'll get out of this, Rimmer, yeah? Like we got out of the Hole."

Rimmer had no idea what Lister was talking about, and he could only assume that it was a reference to the experiences he had had with his alter ego.

"Or that CANARY mission – when Cassandra said everybody would die and we all survived? Or when _Red Dwarf _was decayin'? It all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

Rimmer really didn't know what to say. He wasn't sure whether Lister was trying to reassure himself, or trying to reassure the other Rimmer, or whether he was just talking to fill the eerie silence. The room was featureless, blank, vaguely greyish walls, no windows, no visible door. A prison cell or torture chamber. Or both. Rimmer wanted to be in neither, and normally he would have been the one talking, to compensate for his nerves. Not that it really masked them where potential torturers were concerned.

He dragged in a shaking breath, and mentally called out for the _Wildfire_. He only got static back. At least, he still looked like Ace, so maybe he could keep up the act. Only, Lister would have to know. "'fraid you've got us mixed up, Skipper," he said in his best Ace voice.

Lister stopped his babbling instantly. "Oh. Sorry."

"Skipper, they mustn't know. I shouldn't have to ask this of you, but they must never know, under no circumstances. Do you understand?"

"Yeah… Ace."

Rimmer nodded to himself. He had no idea whether the Liverpudlian really grasped the danger – he had always had the impression that Lister was developing an unhealthy hero complex and recklessness, but lacked in terms of self-preservation.

"D'ye know what's goin' on?"

"We seem to have gotten ourselves into a bit of a fix," Rimmer said, and thought it was the understatement of the century. At least concentrating on Ace had brought his anxiety down.

"'m tied down," Lister announced.

Before Rimmer could reply, there was a flicker in the lightlevels of the room, and a voice boomed at them: "Ace Rimmer." At the same time, a spark of pain exploded in Rimmer's midsection, and he reverted to soft light. He immediately slid through his bonds, and crumbled to the floor at the foot of the table, all conscious thought replaced by deafening white noise as he clutched his chest, trying to make the pain stop.


	13. Hologram

**A/N: I will not bore you with more apologies - just the promise that this story _will_ get finished! This is just a short chapter for now, but there is more to come! **

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><p><em>XIII. Hologram<em>

Lister had been both relieved and disappointed to find that his fellow prisoner was Ace, and not nano-Rimmer. He had been relieved because that meant Rimmer maybe wasn't in danger and was involved in a rescue plan – he wouldn't contemplate leaving him behind, would he? Certainly the Cat and Kryten would have their say in this, wouldn't they? And he was relieved because being with the Rimmer who had become Ace meant that maybe there was a chance that they could get themselves out.

He was disappointed because, right now, he wasn't terribly pleased with this version of Ace, nor did he really feel like he knew this Rimmer anymore. Because this Rimmer didn't trust him. Possibly didn't even like him. Because this Rimmer had so many more reasons to dislike and distrust him. In a way, it was a relief that he couldn't see him, and that he had reverted to using Ace's voice and personality.

He would have jumped to high heaven if he hadn't been strapped down on a semi-upright table when a sinister voice barked out Ace's name, and his stomach turned into a tight knot when he heard Rimmer's strangled gasp and then nothing. Rimmer wasn't responding to his calls, and after a while, Lister had a sore throat for his troubles and was none the wiser as to what had happened.

"Ace?" he tried, once more. He had not expected anything to happen and was completely startled when the ropes holding him dissolved into nothingness and he dropped to the floor, stumbling.

He wasted no time, however. The room was featureless except for two tables back to back, both empty now. There was no visible door, so Lister didn't bother looking for one. Instead, he rounded the tables and discovered what had become of Rimmer.

The hologram had crumbled to a heap on the floor, looking decidedly unwell even as Ace. One hand was pressed against his midsection, and his breathing was coming in shallow gasps which were painful to hear but, considering that the hologram didn't actually need to breathe, seemed overdone. Lister didn't know what to make of Rimmer's blank expression – he was either having a full-blown panic attack, or he was in considerable pain, or suffering from shock. Lister only had seen that expression once, when they had rescued Rimmer from the clone world, but it had dissolved quickly as they had stormed in for the rescue. Now, it didn't look like it would go away anytime soon.

Lister knelt down and reached out to touch Rimmer's shoulder, but to his shock, his hand passed right through the hologram. "The smeg?!"

Rimmer actually looked up at that, focussing on Lister's face in a manner that indicated immense effort. "Listy."

"What's going on?"

"They know. They shouldn't have known." Rimmer was fighting to keep his voice steady and in Ace's register, but Lister could hear it rising with every word and mounting panic. "I'm going to die, aren't I?"

Lister really hoped no one was listening in on them, because right now 'Ace' didn't sound like much of a challenge. "You are a hologram. You can't smeggin' die."

Somehow, Rimmer forced himself to his feet and stumbled away, finding support at the wall. He was putting a distance between them, and Lister let him.  
>"Should have told you," Rimmer said, and had dropped all pretence at being Ace, his voice infused with sarcasm, weak as it was. "Surprised Kryten didn't, actually. He must never have found the time in <em>six hundred years<em>."

"What are you sayin'?"

"Of course holograms can die! You know the lightbee can be destroyed!"

"But you're-"

"Hard light? Nearly indestructible?" Rimmer's expression twisted into a sneer, and he dropped to his knees again. He was trembling, and Lister could see now that it wasn't just that – it was the projection, flickering in dizzyingly irregular intervals. "Simulants are bio-_mechanical_ – they know all about technological life forms, Lister!"

Lister longed for a bazookoid. He wasn't entirely sure whether it was to blast the Simulants away or whether it was to shoot Rimmer. He had that urge for no particular reason, usually. Right now, he really wanted the hologram to stop panicking, and there was nothing like a gun to set priorities right.

He never got around to voicing his wish. With a startled expression, Rimmer just disappeared right in front of his eyes.


	14. The Drawbacks of Being a Hologram

_XIV. The Drawbacks of being a Hologram_

Rimmer was terrified. He was also in pain, because something was inhibiting his lightbee, and it was constantly struggling to reassert his body and failing, which had pretty much the same effect as constant stress had in humans. In his current condition, his T-count was spiking, his head pounded and his ears buzzed with the broken hyperlink that would have been his only support in this situation but which did not seem to be able to penetrate the dampening field surrounding a Simulant ship.

It was only a small combat vessel, but that didn't make the situation any less precarious. Combat vessels usually held the most vicious Simulants, because they were the first to be sent into battle. And Simulants certainly delighted in causing pain.

For a split second, he had allowed himself to believe that the transmat beam had come from _Red Dwarf_. Of course he wasn't such a fool as to hang on to that belief. He'd found himself in another chamber, and this time, there was no question of its purpose. The walls were dark and grim and splattered. And Rimmer didn't take it for a good sign that he was shackled to the wall, even though it meant that he was back to hard light. The fact alone that the Simulants knew that he was a hologram was terrifying – there had been a reason why all Aces had kept that secret so carefully. Because any hard light hologram could be converted to soft light, and as soft light, he could be crushed as easily as any bug. And though he was harder to damage as a hard light hologram, he also could be made to endure quite unimaginable measures of pain without any actual damage. Rimmer had often wondered who had come up with that system since he had become Ace. It seemed singularly stupid to his mind. And he knew that this was not the first time Ace had been in the hands of Simulants, and had been in a room such as this. Susan had taken care to inform him of important things such as this.

The sad thing was it wasn't the first time Rimmer was in this position either. Granted, it hadn't been the simulants but his clones, but it still had been an insanely painful year. And after that, after nothing had actually physically damaged him, they had just locked him away. Locked him away and forgotten about him.

In theory, there was nothing stopping the Simulants from doing the same. They would probably be doing their race a favour if everything the _Wildfire _had told him was true, and even he had destroyed a few Simulant ships during his career – not in this dimension, obviously. But Rimmer had the feeling that the Simulants wanted to know about the dimension drive and what had become of it. And they knew that the most efficient method of getting information out of someone was to use his own mind against him. Rimmer shivered.

There were some aspects to being a hologram that only struck you after months or even years. Some, Rimmer was sure, had only appeared when he had started to use the lightbee constantly instead of allowing Holly to host him – which had probably been the best decision he had ever made, considering that not a long time after that, they had lost _Red Dwarf _and he would have been stranded on _Starbug _if it hadn't been for the light bee. At any rate, some things struck him as more useful than others. For example, he found it slightly disturbing that, when he was soft light, the only actual sensation he felt was whatever touched the surface of the lightbee. Even barriers his programme could recognise, such as floors and walls and certain bits of furniture didn't actually generate any feeling when he touched them or sat on them, because the edges of his body were made of nothing but light. That had changed when he had become hard light, because suddenly the simulated body in and of itself could sense, but it wasn't like the human senses he now barely remembered. Every sensory input had to go through his lightbee, and the mechanical device picked up things a human never would, such as the exact temperature, or the composition of the air or the spectrum of light. It also picked up the passage of time to the precise second, and so Rimmer knew that he had been standing against the wall now for three hours, fourteen minutes and thirty, thirty one, thirty two… seconds. The room had eighteen degrees Celsius, which wasn't exactly cold, but not quite comfortable, either. The air was Earth standard, and the light source in the ceiling had a tendency towards too much red.

Not that any of it mattered, except for the fact that he was growing tired, and his panicked mind had worn itself out. Three hours, fifteen minutes.

Five hours, forty five minutes. Rimmer jerked out of a kind of trance he had probably induced as he tried to while away the monotony by counting seconds – which was not a good sign, because that was precisely what he had done on the clone world, only then he had counted the rotations of a pair of Baoding Balls. His hard light body might be able to withstand more than a human body would, but it was still governed by his mind, and with only a broken, headache-inducing hyperlink, he was beyond exhausted, his legs shaking as he fought to keep himself upright because there really was no choice. Maybe the trance hadn't been so bad.

Rimmer tried to call out for the _Wildfire _again, but all he got for his trouble was a rising volume of the white noise and a piercing ache somewhere behind his eyes. Still, now that he had snapped out of it, he couldn't easily go back into the trance. His lightbee was running on battery now, which was worrisome. When he'd first heard that the battery life of the lightbee was something around two days when fully charged, he'd thought he would never exhaust that power. That had been the days, of course, when he hardly ever even left _Red Dwarf_. And when Kryten had gotten them stranded in the backwards universe, he had panicked for a moment, until he remembered that all the lightbee needed to recharge was solar energy – plenty of that, even on backwards Earth. And so, as long as he stayed connected to a mainframe or outside in the light of a sun, he was perfectly fine. Things got more difficult when he was inside, in deep space, and alone. Like he was right now. Oh, and yes, another lovely advantage of being a hologram: he could tell exactly when his battery was going to run out, which was in five hours and two minutes, because the broken hyperlink and the fact that hard light was forced upon him, even though the lightbee tried to conserve energy because of the corrosion that was progressing through its systems _anyway_, were draining insane amounts of power. And he wasn't even moving.

Rimmer figured it might be a better idea to start counting down – because if the Simulants didn't show up soon, _he_ would be nothing more than a drained and battered lightbee on the floor of their prison cell.

Half an hour. Rimmer wondered vaguely what had become of Lister, or any of the others. His alter ego obviously hadn't come up with a plan yet, which wasn't entirely a surprise. After all, he himself had done the best to convince him that Simulants were dangerous to meddle with. Frankly, if the _Wildfire _had been capable of flight, he would have expected her to take him and run. She might not like it, but her directive to help Ace and to keep the legacy going was certainly stronger than any personal attachment she might have formed to him – and, regarding that, she really needed someone to check her circuitry, because forming an attachment to Arnold J. Rimmer was certainly the first sign of computer senility. After all, Holly was the prime example.

Then again, the _Wildfire _was grounded, and she had obviously not yet come up with a way to penetrate the Simulants' dampening field to reassert the hyperlink and give him a boost of power or the moral support he would have welcomed just as much.

Or maybe they had just decided to abandon him if it meant getting away from the Simulants, but Rimmer didn't particularly care to entertain that idea. They had come for him on the psi-moon, which had been a pleasant surprise, though he had never been certain whether they had come because of him or just so they could get off the planet, because he frankly had not believed a word they had said afterwards. Still, these _were _Simulants, and the best advice really was to run and hide. If he hadn't had an obligation as Ace, he would certainly never have started facing down the Simulants in the first place. He wondered, not for the first time, how much the Simulants actually knew.

He had discovered that Simulants or their equivalent in several dimensions had begun experimenting with dimensionally transcendental technology, though he was fairly certain that none of them had developed anything as sophisticated as the _Wildfire_. Still, if humans could do it, so could they, and his recent experience had certainly shown what damage they could do, even if the weapon had essentially hitched a piggy-back ride on the _Wildfire_'s journey through dimensions. Maybe they had come far enough to make conversation across dimensions possible, or maybe they had been able to send individuals. How else would Ace be famous – or infamous, depending on your perspective – in so many dimensions when all he ever did was travel forward?

Twenty minutes. Rimmer really, really didn't want to die, even though he was at the moment, anyway. He had always supposed it would be inevitable if he became Ace, because no one could live like that and survive for very long – not even the original Ace, quite evidently. But he had somehow always entertained the notion that he would die a hero's death. Anything bettered a radiation leak that had been his own fault. And even when he had realised that he was stranded on _Red Dwarf _he had felt a kind of peace with the idea that he would die in his home dimension with the only people he really knew and the only people who knew him, better than he sometimes wanted them to. He really _didn't _want to blip out in twenty minutes and be crushed under the boot of a Simulant like some annoying worm.

"Ace Rimmer."

Rimmer was startled out of his musings, the movement jarring painfully at his arms which had been blessedly numb before and renewing the tremors in his legs. It took a whole five minutes of his power. He still forced himself upright.

The Simulants – or rather, a Simulant, had finally decided to graze him with his presence, and when Rimmer looked into the face dotted with bits and pieces of machinery, he nearly jumped out of his simulated skin. It was the spitting image of the face he had seen just before he had destroyed the ship that had gotten him into this mess in the first place – the Simulant he had once spared and who had therefore killed ten trillion people.


	15. Arnold Rimmer

**A/N: **I can't apologise enough for the delay in updating, so I won't even attempt to. But the continuing interest in this fic makes me very happy, so here have an early Christmas present! :) (I have now finally finished the fic, so it's just a matter of when I find the time to upload new chapters. But I hope you'll be happy to hear that this is not going to remain a WIP forever. :))**  
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><p><em>XV. Arnold Rimmer<em>

The _Wildfire_ had not expected _this _Rimmer to come pelting into the cargo bay and darting into her cockpit, damaged as it was, only a couple of minutes after she had alerted Ace regarding the Simulants. She hadn't told him – Ace, Arnie – that she only knew because the Simulants were trailing an energy signature that signalled dimensional meddling, but she dared to assume that he knew. Whatever this Rimmer might think of himself, he wasn't stupid, and he had enough experience with her to know that in her present state she couldn't have picked them up before Holly if the trace they'd left hadn't been touching her specialty.

The _Wildfire _wasn't sure whether she would have refused the other Rimmer entry if she had been able to, but she balked as he settled into the pilot chair. He wasn't Ace, not yet, anyway. If she had been able, she might have used the ejection seat. Or heated the chair until the upholstery became too hot to sit on. She could do neither, and she didn't think Arnie would have approved. And, above all, there really was no logical reason why she should feel any kind of animosity towards this Rimmer, other than the fact that she had been with Arnie and his self-loathing for ten years, and some part of her circuitry seemed to have adapted to him as it had adapted to all other Aces before him.

So, she just huffed, speeding up the ventilator of her motherboard for a second, before she showed herself on the screen. Rimmer didn't look exactly well. In fact, there was that panicked look in his eyes she had come to know so well. She felt a wash of anxiety from her Ace, and dispatched a subroutine to calm him through their connecting link, focussing her main processing energy on Arnold Rimmer. "Arnold."

The human jumped a little, then straightened in the chair, pulling his uniform straight and trying to hide his embarrassment. "Hello."

It was startling how much he resembled the current Ace. He looked slightly older than Arnie had when he had joined her, but the mannerisms were the same. She couldn't probe his mind because he was a hologram, but the _Wildfire _had enough experience with his alter egos to know that he was terrified, and that the fact that she was a woman was making him nervous. He never really knew what to say to women, after all. She might have the face of a woman, and she might have been designed to complement a man who had a reputation with the woman of his dimension, but she had changed over the years, and if she knew anything, it was how to talk to Rimmers.

"Don't worry," she said, gently.

"I'm not," he shot back, far too quickly. He had never been a good liar, and the _Wildfire _supposed this Rimmer would be just as adverse to it as her current Ace.

"It's alright, Arnold."

"What am I supposed to do down here!? How are you to keep me safe? Right now I'd be better off hiding under a table!" Rimmer shrunk a little in the chair after his outburst, as if he were doing his best to disappear.

The _Wildfire _was astonished. Arnie had obviously sent him down here to keep him out of harm's way – what was going on? She sent a silent enquiry, but the answer never came. Instead, _Red Dwarf _shook, and she felt a harsh tear and her hyperlink with Ace broke. For a moment, she forgot about the panicking Arnold sitting inside her and retreated into her damaged systems, checking for a fault, finding none, and sending call after call across the link. All she got back was a distorted echo of her own calls.

The _Wildfire _was clever. She had one of the most sophisticated engines ever developed, a processor unit that could compute dimension jumps and memory space that seemed endless. Her nanobots had sped up the auto-repair and she had access to the logs she had stored, and even though she wished she'd find something else, the only precedent to a blocked link with Ace had occurred when said Ace had been kidnapped and tortured by Bionoids, who were the equivalent of Simulants in Dimension 7HHA6608. Ace had escaped, but he had barely been able to find a replacement before he had succumbed to his injuries. They hadn't been physical – from what the _Wildfire _had gathered from his corrupted memory files, the Bionoids hadn't even tried that. Instead, they had taken his mind apart. It was one of the most difficult transitions she had ever gone through, because there was no time to explain to the new Ace, and it wasn't a dimension they had been in before. That Rimmer had had no idea what was going on, and if he hadn't stepped aboard just because it was the safest place to be in the situation he had found himself in, the continuity of Aces would have ended then and there.

The _Wildfire_ burst a few non-essential wires in her music systems to vent her anxiety, then concentrated all her energy on bringing up the shields. She had to mask a human life sign.

Rimmer had no idea what to make of the current situation, but he knew that he had never been so terrified. Not when he had been chased by a T-Rex, and not when he had dropped down a hole and twisted his ankle, certain that he would drown any minute. Susan, or the ship, or _Wildfire_, or whatever he was supposed to call her, had gone quiet, and there was no sound coming from outside. The Red Alert had been terminated for silent running, anyway, but now Rimmer felt as though he were the only being left on _Red Dwarf_. He felt as though his breathing was so loud that he would betray himself to a Simulant if it happened to pass by the door to the hold.

He had never had much success with hiding. His brothers had certainly always seemed to find him, and so had Porky. Not that this was in any way comparable to hiding from bullies. Rimmer had no idea why he had agreed to become Ace when it meant having to stand up to beings for whom the best technique was to run and hide. Of course he had done just that – but that wasn't how he was supposed to stop, was he? What if these beings had entered _Red Dwarf _and were killing everyone else while he sat in this cracked sardine tin?

Above all, Rimmer didn't want to be alone. He had always been one to enjoy solitude, but the thought of spending the rest of his existence in deep space, on the run, the last human being, scared him more than he could comprehend. He had never really cared for most of the crew, and he had gotten somewhat used to spending time with Lister, so he had not really found the disappearance of the crew that terrifying after they had reclaimed _Red Dwarf_. Spending half a lifetime with no one but himself – that was a prospect he didn't even dare think about for too long. He was certain he would go mad inside of two weeks.

Rimmer glanced over the edge of the chair towards the opening in the cockpit where once the rear end had been attached. He wondered whether Ace's guns were still in the chest under the gantry.


	16. Dimensions

_XVI. Dimensions_

It had to be the Simulant's alter ego, of course. Rimmer knew with certainty that he had destroyed the other's ship, and he wondered if this one knew about it. He certainly knew about Ace, and Ace had only been in this dimension twice as far as Rimmer knew (and there really was only the _Wildfire _who knew better), and it seemed unlikely that he had been involved in any adventures then.

It was always easier, apparently, to cross dimensions when there was a direct parallel – which was why Ace had found it so easy to jump right into _Red Dwarf_ in his first trip, and why he always ended up meeting alternate hims in almost all of his future jumps. It was also why Holly's Holly Hop Drive had worked – because the alternate _Red Dwarf_ had been in the same place at the same time, doing the exact same thing. It was also why it had only been a box with a big button ever since.

Rimmer did his best not to shrink away under the Simulant's unblinking gaze. He was male, half of his face encased in a mask of unyielding metal and wires, both eyes mechanically enhanced to something beyond fragile skin and tear fluid. If Rimmer had ever seen a stare truly devoid of emotion, it was this one. Simulants didn't generally go by names, but Rimmer had found it always easier to give them a denomination, even if it was 'smeghead'. But all he could think of as he tried to meet the Simulant's stare as Ace would was 'Cold Eyes', which didn't necessarily make him less scary – because that was the reason why the face of his alter ego had stayed with Rimmer in the first place. He had never been able to forget those eyes, after he had left them drifting in space, helpless, and they had haunted his nightmares. The _Wildfire_ had known, and she had also realised immediately, even damaged as she had been in the crash and short as the transmission had been.

It occurred to Rimmer then that maybe the transmission had not been meant for him, that the _Wildfire _had merely accidently intercepted it, and that he was facing the actual addressee. It did not make the situation any less terrifying.

The Simulant stalked around him with a stiff, mechanical stride, and Rimmer watched him. There was nothing else he could do which would not make Rimmer bite on his fist and Ace sink into the floor in shame.

"Who would have thought", the Simulant said at length, as the equivalent of a red flashing light in the back of his head reminded Rimmer that he now only had ten minutes left, "that Ace Rimmer was actually a hologram."

Rimmer kept his mouth shut. If he had learned anything in his years as Ace, it was to keep his mouth shut. There was no way he could talk himself out of this situation, particularly not with the nervous rambling which would likely burst out of him if he opened his mouth now.

"And not even a very sophisticated one at that." The Simulant stopped in front of Rimmer. His voice was chillingly human. "Running out of power?"

"What do you want?", Rimmer asked. He was fairly certain that the Simulant wasn't really expecting a proper answer.

"_You_, Ace Rimmer. Because you stopped us, and you destroyed my brothers. Because you are proof that compassion kills." In one motion, the Simulant whipped some sort of stick from a holster attached to his upper tight and rammed it into Rimmer's midsection.

Rimmer crashed back into the wall, hard, but that wasn't the worst of it. The stick was spitting energy, and alternating current of raw power which didn't stop once the lightbee had absorbed some of it to replenish its batteries.

It was clever, really, Rimmer thought just before his vision whited out. He was essentially a being of light and a bit of an electric appliance. There were really only two things that could actually harm him – powerful beams of light and electricity. And if you keep overcharging something electric, it eventually short-circuits.

For once, Rimmer had actually no idea how long it had been. His interior chronometer was stuck between shifting between the two same seconds for what seemed like an eternity, and the intervals weren't regular either. He thought that, somehow, for some reason, it was important that he should know how long it had been. He also thought that perhaps he should remember where he was and why he was there and what he was supposed to do, but he found it difficult enough to even come up with these questions. There was a painful knot somewhere near his stomach, which he tentatively classified as panic. It might have been something else entirely, but he really wasn't sure.

It was like watching Frank rattling off astronavigation calculations while he tried to sneak some food off the table and into his pocket because it would soon be his turn and when it was he would be told to leave the table because he was sure that he had read all that somewhere, but he couldn't seem to remember any of it.

Right now, Rimmer wasn't precisely sure who Frank was.

The first thing he had discovered was that he couldn't actually see a thing. He had thought at first that he was staring at a white wall, but eventually he realised that no matter how he rolled his eyes or moved his head, there was no change. And not even a white wall was entirely without features. He thought that had to be a terrifying thing, but he didn't get around to actually feeling it.

He had had a vague sensation of his hands being trapped somewhere above his head for a while, then he felt as though some sort of elastic had snapped inside him and he had crumbled. Now, there was no real sensation at all, except for a chill somewhere near his stomach. He wondered if Lister had poisoned him again, and then tried to figure out who Lister was for a while. He came up with a sketchy memory of a tiny being covered in curry, but it felt more like some remnant of a nightmare.

Rimmer was fairly certain he could still hear. There was a whistling sound, and a soft whooshing sound. One might have been in his head, but he wasn't entirely sure which one. He desperately hoped that neither would stop.

Eventually, some of the confusion cleared, and Rimmer properly panicked. The lack of sensory input as such was something he should be used to by now, after spending so many years as soft light hologram, but back then, he at least still had his eyesight. Now all that remained were the endless string of errors he received from his lightbee, the sound of his own unnecessary breathing and the buzzing generated by the dysfunctional hyperlink. He tried not to show his fear, unsure whether anyone was watching, but he was fairly certain that despite his desperate attempt to cling to Ace's coolness, some of it was visible on his face.

His lightbee was struggling to fix him. The self-repair programme was about the only thing that was still working properly – or working as well as it had when the Simulants abducted him, which wasn't all that well at all. The corruption wasn't slowed down by the fact that he felt the terrible urgency to stop this Simulant, because he knew of what his alter ego had done and if he ever laid hands on the _Wildfire_, nothing would stop him from killing just as many people again. And all because Rimmer had failed spectacularly at being Ace. For all his boasting, he hadn't even known who to kill.

Not that he had ever really wanted that. It was all well when it concerned fictional armies in a game of Risk or when it was self-defence, and especially when it was one of those outer space monsters and someone else was holding the gun. Rimmer had never felt that when it came to bringing justice to the universe he was the right person to ask.

The _Wildfire _had once stooped to quoting Douglass Adams at him, saying that the best leader was the one who didn't want the job, but even though Rimmer had always found leadership appealing, he never really, honestly, believed that he could do it. Sometimes he thought he'd really just tried it to spite Lister, whose assertion that he the very idea was laughable had always irked him. Still, Lister had also been honestly encouraging, but Rimmer had always thought that maybe the third technician had only said all that to get rid of him without too much of a guilty conscience.

Rimmer was sure he had reverted to soft light but it didn't matter. As long as he was dependent entirely on the lightbee to exist, a prison wall was just as effective in stopping him as it was regarding any physical being, since the actual lightbee had no way of phasing through walls. And then there was also the fact that his vision had not yet returned and that he kept discovering gaps in his memory where there had been none a minute earlier, only for recollection to return and another hole to open up somewhere else. He knew that it meant that his very core, his personality files, had been damaged, and that was a bad thing indeed. They were not as easily fixed by auto-repair programmes.

He could always be rebooted, of course, if Holly chose to remember that he had made a backup just after he had arrived on _Red Dwarf_ – the drawback? He had only made a backup up until the whole mess started because he knew that Holly would never risk introducing the dilemma into his systems. Even the _Wildfire _had struggled to cope with that, and her systems were certainly more sophisticated and about three million years younger. At any rate, a reboot from that point would have the same effect as erasing his memory. He would be fine, but confused as to what had happened and why the _Wildfire _was destroyed – and it was true, he would always keep asking, because he needed confirmation that it wasn't his fault. Which, of course, it was.

Eventually, Rimmer heard the heavy, mechanical fall of boots again and pushed himself up into sitting cross-legged on the floor. It wasn't the most opportune position for a fight or for defence, but considering his current soft light status, those weren't an option anyway. Not to mention that he definitely wasn't used to doing _anything_ blind, let alone something as outlandish as fighting.

"Ace Rimmer."

It was the Simulant, naturally. He certainly wasn't the best at opening conversations, Rimmer thought, and then forced himself to ignore him, instead of trying to look into his direction. If the Simulant didn't already know, it was probably better not give away that he couldn't see a thing.

"We have discovered the dimension drive, but it is damaged. You will give us the specifications."

There was a jolt, and Rimmer was back to hard light. Usually, the transition was smooth, almost unnoticeable unless he paid attention, but then it was out of his own choice. Right now, he had no control over that function of his lightbee, and neither had the correction algorithm of the small device itself – the changes were imposed from outside, some intrusive virus manipulating the programme to the Simulant's liking.  
>Rimmer shook his head, smoothly shaking Ace's locks away from his forehead. It was a practiced, pro forma move that had no effect to him as long as he couldn't see, but it helped him get into character, as it were. "Sorry to disappoint you, old chum-"<p>

'Cold Eyes' was evidently immune to Ace's charm. "You are not in a position to argue!"

Quite frankly, Rimmer never really stopped arguing over one thing or another, even if it was with himself, but he wasn't exactly trying to make the Simulant angry. As it was, the news that they had gotten to the _Wildfire_ was alarming – what the smeg had become of his alter ego? – but even if he had given in to the Simulant, which, while Arnold might once have done it in a minute, Ace never would and even Arnold realised that that was the honourable thing to do, he was certain that his services would not stand up to the Simulant's expectations: He had no idea how the _Wildfire_'s engines worked.

Of course, he had done some routine maintenance on her, fixing burnt circuits here and there, cleaning out some pipes, replacing wires or fuses – he used to be a technician, after all – but all that had been under Susan's guidance, and he had never touched the engines. A lot of being Ace could be handled by showing off and bravado, but even in ten years, Rimmer couldn't say that he had required a lot of skills in that field. And the last time he had come even close to an engine, he had wiped out the entire crew of _Red Dwarf_ and gotten himself killed.

It was probably a stupid idea to let the Simulant know that, though, who was certain to interpret his hesitation as refusal any second now... Rimmer had scarcely finished that thought when he started to oscillate between soft light and hard light. The resulting vertigo was making him sick, and made it even harder to think. "Look-", he said, and then remembered himself, "'pologies, but there are no specifications. The engine's a prototype. Unique, as it were."

The switching stopped while he was soft light. It wasn't ideal, but Rimmer supposed that the Simulant had intended nothing else. "Then we will take your friend apart until you remember them."

_Haven't you heard a word I said, you smegger?_ was Rimmer's first reaction. He was glad that he didn't actually blurt it out. The second impulse was: _Go ahead, it's only Listy._ That, for some reason, didn't sit right with him at all, which was strange, because he seemed to remember that he'd once actually meant that sort of thing, and enjoyed it. He wasn't that far gone, was he? Maybe the Simulant intrusion went further than he had thought and had already begun to corrupt his personality. "Fine", he actually said, "Leave Skipper alone and I'll fix the drive for you."

The Simulant was silent for a long while, forcing him to hard light, and Rimmer desperately wished he could see his face. It wasn't like he was particularly good at reading people – in fact, he was spectacularly bad at it – or that dead-eyed Simulants were particularly easy to read, but it would have helped to gauge whether the silence was a sign of fury or consideration.

To Rimmer's horror, the Simulant began chuckling, and _that _sounded mechanical, eerie, like a small screw bouncing about in a box of bells. "You would give yourself up for your friend? You really are a greater fool than I thought! Compassion, indeed!"

Rimmer was confused. Was he? Had he said that? Was he actually offering self-sacrifice? But that was – not him. Obviously. He had been Ace, and Ace would do that. Wouldn't he? Rimmer desperately searched his foggy dream-like memory of what Ace had done before he had become him, trying to find a precedent. Oh, Ace had thrown himself in the way of fire for hundreds of strangers. He had fought on the front line to protect people he barely knew, if at all. But giving himself up for a friend? Surely he must have – but then, what Rimmer had told his alter ego was true. Ace jumped from dimension to dimension, always moving forward, never taking the time to form connections. But it had to have been him, because Arnold J. Rimmer would never-

And suddenly, he could hear her again: "No, Arnie. It is you."


	17. Saving the Universe

_XVII. Saving the Universe_

Rimmer cowered behind the chest and tried not to breathe. It was hard when you were an actual human being, alive, not a hologram. What was also hard was to tell a gun with hologrammatic bullets from one with real bullets when they both looked smegging identical. Rimmer certainly wasn't going to risk shooting himself in the foot to find out.

He was beginning to regret having left the _Wildfire_. He was sure Susan hadn't liked it, but by the time she had noticed he had already been half-way out of the door and there was nothing she could do to stop him as long as her shields weren't working and a door wasn't the most obvious opening in her hull. He had really only planned to get to Ace's chest, fetch the weapon, because they made him feel safe, and then return to the ruined ship – to hide under the console, if need be.

Now, he was sitting between the chest and the wall, cowering under the open lid – which wasn't a good hiding place at all, but so far, none of the Simulants suddenly swarming the cargo hold had looked in his direction. They were focussing on the _Wildfire_'s drive pods, which had been disconnected from the rear end at some point and looked like two largish coffins, which was a mental image Rimmer really didn't need right now.

He had formed a vague idea of Simulants on the basis of Ace's description, but he had not expected them to be this menacing. There were only two of them, but they were literally loaded with weapons, and even though they were smaller than Rimmer, they almost had twice that in stature and impressive armour to go with it. Rimmer was also fairly certain that those pieces of machinery had enhanced their physical abilities – no one should be able to just lift drivepods with one hand.

In short, there was no way at all he could get away without being seen. He supposed he could cower here until one of them inevitably noticed him, or he could try and make a run for the _Wildfire_, hoping that she somehow could protect him as Ace had hoped. He wasn't entirely sure he could manage to move.

Eventually, the decision was made for him. One of the Simulants was taking a conversation from their ship, which led him to step away from his partner working on the drivepots, and his gaze landed directly on Rimmer.

Rimmer later thought that it would have been wonderful if time had frozen. He could have jumped up heroically from behind his hiding place, fired two well-placed bullets – one for each Simulant – and made for the _Wildfire_ to discover what had happened to the others before reinforcements arrived.

What actually happened was far less glorious. Rimmer jerked in shock as he realised he had been discovered, banging his head on the chest, which caused the second Simulant to turn around, as well, just as Rimmer stumbled to his feet and fired the gun – which he hadn't actually intended to do at that moment, but the hair-trigger went off in his hand – the shot was surprisingly well-aimed, but of course it was the wrong gun, and the hologrammatic bullet just passed through the Simulant without doing any harm at all and the Simulants were now pointing their weapons at him. Rimmer then did the only sensible thing, which was to run through between the Simulants, ducking away as their weapons discharged and saved himself with a desperate header into the _Wildfire_'s interior.

He felt the electric charge of a shield going up even before he had managed to comprehend what had just happened and appreciate the fact that he had in all likelihood broken his arm in the impact because it suddenly hurt like hell. Miraculously, he still had the two guns, and he carefully brought the right one up as he turned around – only to see no sign of the Simulants.

"Susan?"

The _Wildfire_'s computer appeared on the nearest screen.

"What the smeg happened? Where are they?"

To Rimmer's astonishment, the computer let out a delighted laugh which suddenly made her a lot more appealing. If a woman like that really had existed, Rimmer would have given a lot to go out with her – though, frankly, he would probably have stood back, or disgruntled her with some smegging remark, and then watch as she waltzed away with someone else. And, being Rimmer, he compensated for embarrassment with insults: "What's wrong with you, you pile of scrap metal!"

The _Wildfire _stopped laughing, but there was still a delighted twinkle in her eyes. "You should go see for yourself, Arnold."

"Are you mad?! No way am I going outside those shields again! Have you seen my arm! I didn't exactly plan on dying today!" Rimmer tucked his arm towards his chest – it was definitely broken – and eyed the shield warily.

"Arnold."

Something in her tone made Rimmer look at her again.

"Take a look."

"Fine. But if you think I'd be so stupid as to step outside so you can get rid of me, you're mistaken." He pushed himself to his feet and approached the energy shield closing off the opening in the hull carefully. His breath caught in his throat when he glimpsed one Simulant's armour, but then he realised that the Simulant was lying on the floor, on his back, unmoving. Rimmer looked across the hold and found the other Simulant, in the same position just opposite, prone on his back. He could actually see the face of that one, and the remnants of human features were slack, the machinery all but dead.

Rimmer was able to put one and one together. It wasn't even remotely enough to become an officer, but he wouldn't have chosen a career in space with the IQ of a glass of water. However, right then and there, 'two' just didn't make sense. "What the smeg?"

"You would never have believed me," Susan said, matter-of-factly. And she was right.

"They shot each other?"

"They were shooting at you."

Of course they had been. It had been very close – just as Rimmer was right between them. He had felt the weapon discharge whip past him as he ducked out of the way… "You cannot be serious. Things like that do not happen." They didn't happen to him, and they didn't happen, period. No one was that smegging lucky, certainly not Arnold J. Rimmer.

"Congratulation, Ace. Well done," the _Wildfire _said softly behind him, and Rimmer thought he'd misheard. He didn't dare ask.

"So, I'm safe?"

"The Simulants won't just fly away, Arnold. They will come back. We have to try and contact the other you."

Rimmer sank down in the pilot chair. "How?"

The _Wildfire _told him about the hyperlink, about how she could communicate with the current Ace directly because he was a hologram, in essence a computer programme much like her own personality algorithm.

She had stopped thinking of Arnold as 'the other'. He took a bit longer to grasp the concept, not having experienced being a hologram himself, nor having had any contact at all with holograms during his short existence until he had met his alter ego. She also found it hard to convey everything verbally – a lot of the past Aces had been holograms, she just wasn't used to it anymore, but she thought she was successful in conveying her urgency. She had been trying to reach Ace constantly, but she still only received useless feedback, and she feared for him. And she knew that the person Arnold would be most willing to help was, in a sense, himself.

She also wasn't used to the high degree of expression possible in an alive human face anymore. A hard light body was very close to the real thing, but it remained a close second. Responses to heat or cold, for example, where practically non-existent, and even thought the lightbee did its best to interpret the emotional and physical state of its projection, it lacked behind in matters like showing fatigue, pain, sickness. Arnold's face now was pale, drawn, tense, he was sweating, and his right arm remained cradled to his chest. He looked more miserable than Ace had in a very long time, but, with him, she could never be sure whether it was an accurate reflection of his state considering his hologrammatic status. This Rimmer was clearly determined to keep going.

The _Wildfire_ had scanned him, and his arm was definitely broken and needed seeing to – which was a bad thing, because as far as she knew, Rimmer was right-handed. "Arnold, do you understand?"  
>He nodded, prying open the panel to his right. "Are you sure about this?"<p>

"Yes. The power boost should be enough to break through the Simulant field." She was fairly certain that was not what he had been implying with his question, but she needn't tell him that he could do this. It was a simple rewiring job, and she was a carefully maintained and polite ship, not like the chicken soup machines on _Red Dwarf _that malfunctioned just to spite the crew and its team of technicians, much to Rimmer's never-ending dismay.

Rimmer bent over the open panel with unease. It had been a while since he had done anything technical, really. There were no food dispensers to fix in prison, and they hadn't let him near anything during probation. Then, after they had recovered _Red Dwarf_, it had been miraculously restored to factory condition, and hadn't really needed any maintenance with the exception maybe of Holly, but there was no way any of the others would let him near the computer's systems. Not that Rimmer was eager to – Lister had told him some truly spectacular stories of what had gone wrong when they had decided to mess with Holly in the past. At any rate, the only mechanical work anyone had been doing was Lister tinkering with Kryten when the mechanoid found a persistent fault – and Lister had been doing that for years, as far as Rimmer could gather, and he saw no need to get involved. So, the last maintenance job he had done was probably the regulation round of the food dispensers on the morning Lister had gone into stasis, which was a respectable three millions years ago. And then, of course, there was the issue with the driveplate, which he had apparently screwed up but couldn't remember – and Rimmer was rather glad about that. At least he could pretend that it was actually the other Rimmer who had messed up, and not the two of them.

He jostled his arm as he turned around and hissed through his teeth, but he couldn't let that stop him now. He scrubbed a sweaty palm over his trousers and reached his left hand carefully into the tangle of wires. Arnold J. Rimmer, saving the day. When did that happen?

"It this the one?" He tapped one of the cables.

"Yes, exactly. Well done, Ace."

There it was again, and, this time, Rimmer was certain he hadn't misheard. "I'm not Ace. Stuck-up goit in a suit made of tinfoil… Ridiculous wig." Still, hadn't he always wished people would call him that instead of Arnie? Hadn't he always wanted someone, anyone, to tell him _Well done_?

Susan smiled at him from her screen, softly encouraging. "Go on."

Rimmer pulled the wire until it came lose, then found the second one, freed it carefully and then took a moment to wipe the sweat away and still his trembling hand before he moved the wires together and worked at connecting them. It wasn't easy, one-handed, and he felt rather like defusing a bomb – not that he had any experience in that area – but eventually Susan let out a cry of triumph, and the feeling of success that flooded Arnold was unlike anything he had experienced before. Granted, the pranks he had pulled in prison with Lister had been successes, at least qualified ones, but he had never succeeded in something important. And suddenly he understood again why he had told his alter ego that he would become the next Ace.

It took Rimmer a while to grasp the fact that it had actually been the _Wildfire_ talking to him, not just some hallucination his mind had conjured up. He tried not to show his surprise. The Simulant had not miraculously gone away, and Rimmer was sure he still had some despicable things he might do to him if even for a moment he suspected that Ace was trying to trick him. He directed his attention mentally towards the _Wildfire_.

He could feel her worry, the hyperlink fully functional once more – there wasn't even the buzzing at the edges that had bothered him before his imprisonment. "Oh, Ace."

"What is going on?"

"Arnold did it. He rerouted power in my systems – the dampening field isn't strong enough."

Rimmer noticed that she conveyed a second feeling she didn't necessarily want him to know about – pride. For a moment, he felt a stab of jealousy, but there was also relief, because it meant that she had accepted his alter ego as the next Ace, and that he was ready. Good for him – and from what Rimmer had seen he would probably become a better, more satisfied Ace than he had been.

"Won't they detect it?"

"No. Arnie, what happened to you? Are you okay?"

Rimmer didn't find it necessary to answer the question. "Can you do anything so I can see? The lightbee doesn't seem to be able to cope with the damage."

"Your infrared sensors are functional."

Rimmer made immediate use of that knowledge. It was just another one of those borderline useless things that came with being a hologram – a sensor necessary for recognising other people as even present. Rimmer had never considered using it just for the sake of it, but while his vision remained whited out, he could now at least pinpoint and focus on the heat signatures given off by the Simulant.

'Cold Eyes', in his mirth completely oblivious to the silent conversation Rimmer had been leading, lifted his arm – presumably with a weapon – and motioned to Rimmer. "Follow me."

The Simulant led him straight ahead for a while, then waved him into what Rimmer presumed to be another room, or cell. He stepped past the Simulant and his heat-outline, distorted and interrupted by his mechanical additions, and immediately noticed a new outline – uninterrupted, small – but Rimmer really wouldn't have needed it to tell that this was Lister. The third technician smelled like curry and beer on the best of days, and now that he had apparently spent what amounted to at least half a day on the Simulant ship, the smell of madras sweat was quite pungent. Rimmer tried not to wrinkle his nose too much. Instead, he turned back towards the Simulant, waiting for his next move. 'Cold Eyes' was typing something into an addition at his wrist, and Rimmer felt the tug of a transmat beam.

Lister had been about to go crazy for the lack of something to do. After Rimmer had disappeared, he had been left alone. Completely alone. No one came to talk to him, to interrogate him, smeg, even to torture him. They had just left him as time trickled by endlessly slowly. He was going spare.

Lister hated just sitting around. He could slob about all day in his bunk, no problem there, but if there was something going on, he needed to be in the thick of it, do _something_. He didn't know what had happened to the others, or to Rimmer, who had been gone too smegging long. Not that he was worried about the smeghead – hell, Ace had probably escaped already. But then again, Rimmer had said they'd be after Ace, and he had sounded terrified when he thought they knew about him being a hologram. And they'd be after humans. Or, at least, they were supposed to come after humans. Lister had not seen any sign of them wanting to do anything to him.

After what felt like an eternity, a panel in the wall finally slid to the side and revealed a Simulant. Lister had always secretly thought they were slightly laughable beings that often looked like they had been gobbled together from spare parts. This one, however, was chilling as he stared at Lister, and Lister stared down at the longish stick he was brandishing as a weapon. It looked more like a glorified screwdriver, but Lister wasn't going to take any chances. He climbed to his feet.

And then Rimmer stepped past the Simulant. Lister's first reaction was relief. It meant Ace hadn't gotten himself killed, yet, and they could launch an escape attempt, but the more he looked at the hologram, the less certain he became. There were a lot of things off about the Rimmer. He still looked like Ace, but his eyes were dark and expressionless, and there was a periodic flickering in some parts of his body like patchwork. He looked tired, almost as bad as he had when they had first revived him back on _Red Dwarf_.

Even though Lister had been trying to catch his gaze, communicate the message to clobber the Simulant on the head while he was standing next to him, the hologram didn't actually meet his gaze. He wasn't avoiding it, exactly, either. He just looked at Lister only for a moment, before turning to face the Simulant again, who had begun to fiddle with some device in his wrist. Immediately, a transmat beam enveloped them.

Rimmer knew instantly that they were back on _Red Dwarf_. The hyperlink with the _Wildfire_ was much stronger, and the familiar smell of the recycled air was unmistakeable. Now that he was reconnected to a mainframe, his vision had begun to improve slightly – at least now there were intermittent, blurry shapes, but he still relied mostly on the heat signatures to tell him that both Lister and 'Cold Eyes' had transmatted with him.

Lister mercifully knew to keep his mouth shut, though Rimmer could feel him moving closer towards him. The Simulant jerked his arm again, and this time, Rimmer actually felt the energy weapon brushing his biceps.  
>"This way."<p>

Lister didn't claim to be able to recognise every corridor on _Red Dwarf_ when they all looked identical, but he knew that they had rematerialised near the cargo hold where he had stored the remnants of the _Wildfire_. He would have given much for a bazookoid to blast the Simulant off the ship, but he also was, in a way, relieved that they had not materialised to the sight of Kryten and the Cat being held hostage. It seemed that Ace's plan had worked and that they had not been discovered. Lister didn't exactly expect them to come barging in for a rescue anytime soon, though.

He was torn between hoping that Ace, who was far too quiet, had a plan and remembering that this was actually Rimmer. He wondered if he might be better of trying to grapple for the weapon with a Simulant twice his strength.

The Simulant conducted them towards the hold at gunpoint – if you could call the longish stick buzzing with raw power a gun. Lister had no idea what they wanted with the _Wildfire_, but that was obviously the prospect for which they had come here. The dimension ship was certainly in no condition to fly, and Lister had not even been certain whether he could fix it at all.

To his surprise, the _Wildfire_, which had been split in front and rear, had been fitted back together, and the ship looked almost impressive again. The damage, however, was still clearly visible, as was the original breaking point and the fact that the front window was missing. The drivepods also still lay by the side, unconnected.

The first thing the Simulant noticed, of course, was the two spread-eagled corpses of two of his fellow Simulants. His expression instantly clouded over, and he prodded Rimmer sharply in the side with his stick, which caused the hologram to double over with a gasp and clench his fists.

Rimmer had seen the weapon – torture device – coming towards him in a way as it powered up, but he had been too late to evade it. And he had no idea what he had done to deserve it – as far as he knew, he had been complying with all instructions. Instead of snapping at the Simulant, however, he turned to the _Wildfire_. "What did I do?"  
>"Two dead simulants," she supplied apologetically, again with an undercurrent of pride.<p>

His alter ego certainly had done a hard day's work while he had been gone on holiday in the Simulant's torture chamber. Aloud, he said: "Sorry, old chum. No idea what happened."

The Simulant was reading his equipment. "There are no other life-forms."

Rimmer looked up at what he assumed to be the _Wildfire_, clearly seeing the heat signature of his alter ego inside. He was glad the Simulant didn't seem to rely on such equipment – which, in a universe where a lot of beings were either hologrammatic or mechanical, did make sense. It also made sense in a twisted way that 'Cold Eyes' would now assume that his two buddies had shot one another. Simulants were prone to quarrels, especially those in combat vessels, and not much killed a Simulant other than their own weapons – and the bullets in Ace's gun. Rimmer wondered whether they were still in the chest under the gantry where he had left them after his alteration with his other self.

"Get to work." The Simulant trained his weapon on Lister, whose stance hardened defiantly.

Rimmer knew his time was up. He could bluff the Simulant into thinking that he was working on the drivepods for a while, especially with the _Wildfire _whispering in his ear, but he could not fool him into thinking he could see when he failed to locate the drivepods altogether. And if he couldn't see, he couldn't fix the drive, and his bargain was up – and Lister would be shot.

The _Wildfire_, sensing his mounting panic, sent a burst of energy, and just for a moment, his vision cleared, and he saw Lister's concern lurking behind the bravado, and the drivepots, just by the _Wildfire_'s rear end. He stepped past Lister without a word, approaching the drive and kneeling in front of them. Any other Ace might have lit a cigar nonchalantly, but not this one. He just ran his hand over the smooth panel and pried it open where a few disjointed wires were sticking out.

"Just a little while longer," the _Wildfire _whispered, and he believed her.


	18. Losing Io

**_A/N:_** Merry Christmas if you celebrate! And if not, have a great day! Here's a new chapter for all of you!

* * *

><p><em>XVIII. Losing Io<em>

Lister couldn't believe what he was seeing. He could not believe that Ace, or even Rimmer as Ace, would willingly collaborate with a Simulant who might just kill them all on a whim. Rimmer, after all, had claimed to know who their enemy was, having learned long ago that the Simulants did not accept surrender, and even a natural coward did not make that mistake twice, and Ace was the kind of guy who would go down fighting any day instead of doing what an enemy asked of him. This was so out of character for both of them that Lister seriously thought about bolting for the door, even though that most certainly would get him killed.

The Simulant didn't seem to mind if Lister wandered around the hold as long as he stayed where he could keep an eye on him – in line of fire. Lister wondered what exactly the deal was – from where he was standing, it looked like Rimmer had indeed managed to sell them out to stay alive. Rimmer was a coward, but Lister pointedly refused to believe this. Not after Rimmer had been Ace for such a long time. He had always entertained the thought that there was a scrap of decency hidden somewhere inside the neurotic hologram, and he had hoped that being Ace would bring it out. It stung to see that, apparently, he had been horribly wrong. Not only had Rimmer betrayed them to what clearly was an enemy he had gotten to know quite well, he also seemed to be completely blind to the fact that no matter what the bargain had been, the Simulant would still kill him.

Eventually, he just sat down opposite Rimmer as he was prodding and poking around in the drivepod. Close up, he could see that the hologram's hands were shaking badly. "What the smeg are you doing, Ace?"

Rimmer's head jerked up as if he had only now noticed Lister's presence. "Don't even think about coming up with some smegging plan, Listy", he said, in his own voice, "or you will have killed us all."

"So I just watch ye save yer life? What about the Cat and Kryten and me and the other Rimmer?"

Rimmer gritted his teeth. "Shut up, Lister."

"I'm not smeggin' shuttin' up! Ye don't want t' die! I get it! But I'm not lettin' ye give the Simulants what they want! They'd kill us as soon as yer done!"

Rimmer became red-faced, his nostrils flaring. "Would you keep your voice down, you goit?" He pulled out a wire and put it back in the exact same place.

Lister stared, and suddenly the penny dropped. "Ye're bluffin'."

"Stalling," Rimmer whispered. He prodded at another wire, his hands shaking so hard that he had difficulties even loosening it from its plug socket.

"Why?"

Rimmer paused for a moment, considering the question. As he saw it, there were several possible answers, and he had always been good at making lists – actually reaching a decision was another matter. One, the Simulant would have shot Lister if he hadn't given in. Two, the Simulant would have tortured _him _if he hadn't given in. Three, the other Rimmer was inside the _Wildfire_ coming up with a plan. Four, he was waiting for a stroke of luck. And Five, he had no idea what to do, but if he could somehow stop this from happening, the deaths of ten trillion people might not seem quite so useless (and not quite so much his fault). Lister would probably have believed option One and Two, but Rimmer didn't really want to tell him that. The curry-eating space-bum already thought he was a coward, and while that was a given, Rimmer wasn't keen on reiterating that fact. "Because the Simulants must never have a dimension jump," he said.

"What damage could it do? It's just transport."

"It could kill trillions of people."

"Now ye're takin' the smeg!"

Rimmer looked up, and his vision was by now stable enough that he could actually look Lister in the eyes. "I am not kidding, Skipper", he said, slipping into Ace for a moment, though his voice faltered immediately, refusing to remain dulcet, smooth, low in pitch, when this was so important, "They could and they would, and _I have seen it happen_."

Lister stared at Rimmer even as the hologram averted his gaze. He had seen Rimmer sad before. Grieving, in pain, lonely, sick, maudlin drunk, melancholic, disappointed, down-hearted, sulking. He had never heard his voice infused with so much raw pain that Ace's cultured tones just wouldn't suffice to convey it. Even when Rimmer had talked about his family, or lamented his death, his voice had been flat, sarcastic. Lister knew that there were things Rimmer didn't talk about, things he couldn't downplay with sarcasm, but still… Even though he had believed that pushing him to become Ace would get Rimmer killed, he had not expected something so profoundly horrible that even the death of the entire crew of _Red Dwarf_ paled by comparison.

"Smeg. Rimmer-" He never got around to finishing the sentence he hadn't even known how to end when he had started it.

Suddenly, there was a mighty groan to their right, and the _Wildfire_'s door, unhinged and dysfunctional when they had brought the ship on board, struggled to open. The Simulant immediately began shooting, and Rimmer and Lister ducked down at either side of the drivepot as energy discharges whipped around them, bouncing off the shield the _Wildfire _had erected. Rimmer, being a hologram, wasn't lucky enough to escape them entirely, even though the _Wildfire_ tried to direct the energy away from them – he was, after all, a conductor. The lightning strikes would stop soon enough. It wasn't like this was the worst thing that had happened to him in the last hours.

"Drop it!", his alter ego's voice suddenly rang out, unsteady, but loud enough to be heard over the buzzing energy.

'Cold Eyes' stopped firing, levelling his gun at Lister. "Who are you?"

For a second, his alter ego locked eyes with Rimmer, then flung a gun away from himself, raising his arms slightly. "Commander Ace Rimmer. Nice to finally meet you, dear chum."

Rimmer stared. His other self had the voice down pat, and the mannerisms seemed to sit easily on his shoulders. He was missing the uniform and the wig, but at that moment, he made a far more convincing Ace than Rimmer.

He was still standing behind the shield, and the Simulant wasn't such a fool as to not notice. "Step out of the shield or-"

Nano-Rimmer did not even hesitate. He stepped smoothly forward onto the actual floor of the cargo hold. "I do apologise."

The Simulant eyes him, then the hologram, then the gun that was lying uselessly a few feet away. "You're human."

Nano-Rimmer shrugged. "My bad."

The Simulant licked his lips, bringing his gun around. "Indeed."

Then, in a second, Rimmer had drawn the second gun and the hair-trigger released immediately as he brought it up to aim.

By Rimmer's standards, it was a terrible shot, but it caught the Simulant in the shoulder and sent the energy weapon skitting towards Lister, who immediately picked it up.

"Now, Arnold!" nano-Rimmer cried, and Rimmer didn't need more of an incentive than that. He pushed himself to his feet and ran, bolting towards the door with Lister hot on his heels and his other self just behind him.

Just for a second, Rimmer stopped in the doorway, and it was then that he saw it, and once more time seemed to freeze for him.

The Simulant had picked up the gun discarded by his other self. He brought it up to aim at the back of nano-Rimmer, perfectly ready to shoot the man whom he believed to be truly Ace in the back. And some part of Rimmer knew what that gun was, and that it did little more damage to a human than a static shock - unless the bullet happened to be fired to the exactly right spot. Part of him knew that the odds of the Simulant hitting the spinal column were miniscule. Part of him knew all that, but he reacted anyway, pulling his other self sharply back and out of the way. Nano-Rimmer stumbled into Lister and they crashed into the hallway and the bullet was in flight and it hit _him_ squarely in the chest, and he was flung back and the door to the cargo bay slit shut.

It took Lister a while to sort out what had just happened as he punched in security code after security code into the cargo bay door, sealing the Simulant inside. He knew it was useless, really, because nothing was stopping him from transporting back to his own vessel and opening fire on _Red Dwarf_, but maybe, just maybe, they had a bit of time, and he wasn't going to allow him go wandering around the ship.

Both Rimmers were on the floor. Nano-Rimmer was nursing his right arm, but there was a smug grin threatening to break through the remainders of panic. The other Rimmer, the hologram, the one who had been Ace, just looked tired without any trace of triumph. His projection was wobbling unsteadily, parts of him fading to greyscale or disappearing altogether. He sighed, and his lightbee put him back into a blue, military style tunic not so far removed from the _Red Dwarf_ basic ceremonial uniforms, removing Ace's wig in the process. He climbed to his feet, nodding at Lister.

Nano-Rimmer also scrambled to his feet, hurriedly. "What now?"

"The drive deck, I think," his alter ego said. "The Simulant will go back to his ship and open fire."

They set off immediately.

"How d' we stop 'im?" Lister had some experience with trying to kill one single Simulant (granted, a deranged convict with no brains and extremely violent tendencies), and he knew how difficult it could be. Somehow, he doubted that one of their ships would be easy to destroy.

Holo-Rimmer, unknown to Lister, thought the exact same thing. The _Wildfire_'s weapons might have been a match for the combat vessel if they were fully charged and well-aimed, but there was no way he could get to the dimension ship now, let alone get her to fly in time. _Red Dwarf _couldn't withstand Simulant weapon fire for very long.

Once they reached the auxiliary driveroom, he sank down on one of the chairs in front. Through the view screen he could see the moon – Io, the Io that didn't even belong to this dimension, the last remnant of one of the dimensions that were forever lost.

Rimmer saw only one solution. "Lister", he said, "have you been playing pool lately?"


	19. Leaving Home

_XIX. Leaving Home_

When Rimmer realised what Ace was suggesting, he was just about ready to declare his alter ego absolutely bonkers. Playing pool with planets? "Lister is going to get us all killed!" he exclaimed, not for the first time, as the three of them settled into _Starbug_. "And if he doesn't, what is going to stop the moon from crashing into _Red Dwarf_?"

"Aw, come on, Rimmer! I promise ye I can do it." Lister was piloting the _Bug_ and speeding terribly, trying to get them around the mining ship and behind the moon before the Simulant had recovered and started opening fire.

"I didn't like the idea either the first time around," Ace commented from the second seat up front. Rimmer couldn't shake the feeling that there was something wrong with the hologram physically, never mind mentally. He had been making adjustments on the console at first, but his left hand had kept passing through the metal, and now he just sat back stiffly, hands folded in his lap.

"But it worked out. Told ye – King of the Cues. Kryten didn't think we'd even remember." Lister pulled the control column sharply and _Starbug _swerved, rounding the moon that looked like Io.

"But we did," Rimmer added, with a rather sour expression. "Just typical of the metal moron."

Lister punched his knobby fingers against some buttons on the panel before him. "Suck it up, Rimmer. You know how Kryten's guilt chip went into overdrive. 'e would have sat through your entire lecture on telegraph poles if you'd asked him."

The hologram folded his arms. "It was disgusting. I've never met a more two-faced know-it-all. Still, as much as I hate to admit it, we don't really have any other option right now. Kryten's garbage canon wouldn't even put a dent in that ship."

Nano-Rimmer still wasn't happy. "At least we should have asked Holly to make the calculations!"

Ace folded his arms. "Yes, well, we'll never know how that would have turned out, will we?"

Lister let out a terribly chirpy chuckle that grated on Rimmer's high-strung nerves. "Seriously – they two of ye are worse than me old gran and her book club!"

They ignored him.

"What happened last time?", nano-Rimmer asked, his left hand cramping around the armrest of his chair while he cradled his broken arm to his chest. It hurt like hell, but, by god, it was nothing in comparison with Lister's driving.

His alter ego sneered. "Lister decided to jug Holly's coordinates in the bin and do a _trick shot_."

Rimmer's mind went mercifully blank, going right past panic and into a state of denial. "In other words, we're smegged."

"I'd planned it perfectly," Lister protested, slowing the _Bug _down finally. By coincidence, they were hovering just out of orbit directly above the sight where they had found the crashed _Wildfire_. "Rimmer – I, mean, Ace, I think those are the coordinates."

Holo-Rimmer nodded. "Yes. The _Wildfire_'s confirmed it. No messing around, Listy. I'm not going to get stuck with you on _Starbug _again."

"Not plannin' to, mate." Lister moved his hand to hover over the trigger of the mining laser. "Here goes nothin'."

"Oh God, we're so dead." Nano-Rimmer held his breath.

Lister's hand came down on the button.

A tight beam of laser fire exploded from the front of _Starbug_, hitting the moon squarely.

Nothing happened.

Holo-Rimmer leant forward to read a screen on his console. "It's working! Do it again."

Lister fired a second beam, and this time, cracks opened up in the surface of the planet. They became wider and wider even as the mining laser stopped.

Nano-Rimmer remembered to breathe, just to say something: "Is that supposed to happen?"

Silence descended over the occupants of _Starbug _as the cracks began to spread and they could do nothing but watch.

Lister had gone slightly pale. "'s jus' a minin' laser. It can't destroy planets."

"It can", Ace said, very quietly, "because the moon isn't supposed to even be here. It bled through from another dimension. Just a remnant."

"So it is Io?" Rimmer was both pleased and apprehensive about it, and he knew it bled through into his voice. As homes went, he had always liked Io, even though he didn't remember his childhood with fondness. He'd always wanted to break away from his family, but he missed the moon as such. There was a reason why he had never tried to get rid of his Ionian accent.

Below them, the cracks had spread over the entire surface of the planet and were deepening. There was pressure building from within.

"Smeg, it's going to explode!"

"Don't worry, Listy!" Ace leant back, looking rather smug. "_Red Dwarf_ was built to withstand a meteor storm. It's a mining ship. The Simulant, however-"

"We're in smeggin' _Starbug_! Remember what 'appened last time we were hit by a meteorite, and that was just a small one! Smeggin' hell, Rimmer, you better tell me that wasn't the plan all along!"

They never got Ace's answer, as Io was torn apart. There should have been a sound, anything to mark the demise of what had been Rimmer's home in some other dimension, but being in open space, this momentous occurrence passed by without so much as a plip, as rather a lot of things in Rimmer's life tended to do. Rimmer stared as the debris was hurled outwards soundlessly, catapulted away by the tremendous force that had been building up in its centre. In a way, the sight was almost entrancingly beautiful, and there was nothing in Rimmer's mind as the particles started coming closer and closer. If his life was supposed to flash before his inner eye in the moment of his imminent death, it didn't. He didn't even think of a certain soup, or of Floor 13, or of the failure his life had been. He just sat there and waited for the real death, the one you couldn't knee in the groin.

Even before the particle shockwave hit them, Ace had taken hold of the control column on front of him. "Lister, get off the controls!" Lister, completely startled, did what he had asked even though it occurred him a second later that that might not have been the most sensible idea he had ever had, but it was too late now for second thoughts.

He watched as Ace took firm hold of the control – or tried to: The hologram's left refused to close around the handle, phasing through it. With an intense look of concentration, he looked over his shoulder. "Arnold! Need a hand here!"

Rimmer jumped at the sound of his name and scrambled to the front even as Lister watched them with a frozen expression. "What do I do?!"

"Left hand! Just follow my lead."

"But I've never-"

Small dust particles crashed against the windshield.

Ace pulled the control column sharply towards him, then to the side. Spaceships weren't meant to be flown one-handed, the control columns were generally too heavy, but Rimmer lived up to his task. _Spacebug _shot upwards, to the left, looped – and suddenly they were behind _Red Dwarf_, and shooting towards the bay doors.

And Lister knew they were going to crash spectacularly, because he had been in that situation before, and he had seen the cockpit after that, and he had no idea how they all had survived in the first place. He made a grip for the controls, but the console in front of him was dead. "Slow down!"

Ace pushed the column directly forward, and _Starbug_ braked sharply, throwing all of them forward. Rimmer landed across the front console on his broken arm which he had almost forgotten in the rush of things – and then, as he pushed himself upright, the _Bug _settled down slowly in the bay, the heavy doors closing behind them.

Lister remembered to breathe.

Suddenly, a screen to his right came alive. "There you are!"

"Holly!"

"Got to take a look when planets and combat ships are exploding around you, don't you?" Holly sounded almost defensive.

"It worked?", Rimmer asked. He didn't sound as though he could quite believe it.

Holly looked indifferent. "Oh, the Simulant got caught in the path of the debris."

"YES!" Lister punched the air with his fist and then tried to box holo-Rimmer's shoulder in triumph, only to find that his hand went right through. He jerked back immediately, meeting the hologram's gaze for a moment before Rimmer looked away.

"Sorry. Lightbee's glitching a bit." Ace pushed himself to his feet. "Holly, are you _sure_ the Simulant has been destroyed?"

Holly rolled his eyes. "Gordon Bennett, yes, Arn. It has been destroyed. Just riding out the last of the rocks now."

Rimmer let out a slightly hysteric giggle. "We've just blown up an alternate version of our home planet!" His gaze settled on the control column. "I'd like to be able to fly like that."

To everyone's surprise, holo-Rimmer smiled an easy smile. "You can. Or you will learn. Really, blowing up Io was kind of symbolic, really."

Lister stepped round the pilot chair towards him, suddenly worried. "What are ye sayin', Rimmer?"

The hologram ignored him, looking instead at his alter ego, who was beginning to shift on his feet, slightly unease.

"I am saying that it is time. You are ready – and, well, since you are going to leave home to become Ace, I thought it was… kind of… symbolic."

Several things shot through Arnold's head at the same time in that moment, and that took him by surprise, because it had never happened before. There was the idea that he had never considered _Red Dwarf _to be his home, not really. Then there was pride and astonishment at the roundabout compliment, especially since it was coming essentially from himself. That was shadowed by apprehension, because he didn't feel ready, not really. And then there was the fact that the hologram's voice had sort of cracked on the last words, and that he stumbled, crashing against the wall, which kept him upright – sort of.

"Rimmer?"

"Bit of help here, Arn," the hologram said, with a sarcastic undertone as if remembering a joke than none of them understood.


	20. Still Dying

_XX. Still Dying_

Between them, they managed to manoeuver Rimmer, or Ace – Lister wasn't really sure how to call him anymore – out of _Starbug _and into their quarters. It wasn't easy progress, because even though Rimmer was essentially hard light, parts of him kept fading out, and it was worst around his left shoulder. After they'd nearly dropped him once because of that, and the hologram had barely managed to stay on his feet, Lister had looped his arms around the hologram's waist. He really had expected at least one of the Rimmers to make a smegging remark about it, but they both remained stonily silent except for the little grunts of pain from the hologram.

Once they got there, he all but collapsed on the bottom bunk, and just lay there, breathing heavily through his nose.

"Do ye want to tell me what the smeg is goin' on?" Lister was only this far away from snapping. He had thought that they had done it, that the whole drama had been over when Holly announced that the Simulant had been destroyed. That he could go on fixing the _Wildfire_ and somehow tolerate two Rimmers for a few more weeks and then see Ace off – again – and go back to how life had been. He had first realised that wasn't going to happen when his fist had passed right through Rimmer's shoulder. And now here he was, staring down at a pale hologram, looking impossibly small on the bunk that had once been his, while nano-Rimmer looked as though he was going into shock, pathetically cradling his arm as he sank down in a chair, looking at nothing.

His alter ego shifted on the bunk, trying to find a more comfortable position and evidently failing from the look on his face. "You know how it works, Lister. You've already seen it happen once. One Ace dies, and another takes over for him."

Lister had no idea if holo-Rimmer had intentionally mirrored the words the previous Ace had said to him what seemed like a lifetime ago, but somehow hearing them in Rimmer's own voice made them far more eerie.

"You're really dying?", the other Rimmer asked in a small voice.

The hologram nodded. "The bullet's too much. You must have known when I pushed you out of the way. You knew which gun it was."

Lister looked back at the Rimmer he had been in prison with, the Rimmer that had been reconstructed by nanites to the point before the accident, but had always seemed slightly more mature to Lister – possibly because they had somehow managed to skip right past the childish squabbles he and holo-Rimmer had had in the days after the accident when they both tried to come to terms with their new situation and were both failing, really. Rimmer going overboard with his belief in aliens – probably because an endless existence as soft light hologram had been a terrifying thought – and he moping after Kochanski because he just didn't want to believe that there would be no second chance. Funny how things had turned out: Rimmer had eventually gotten a body from an entity that was as close as you could seem to get to aliens, and Lister had had his second chance – not that that had turned out as well as he had hoped. At any rate, he had also had a second chance with Rimmer, and he'd thought that had turned out quite well. They still got on each other's nerves, but somehow they had gone right to the point where they stuck together because there was no one else and they had a common enemy. Right now, nano-Rimmer looked impossibly young, just as shell-shocked as the other had when the previous Ace had died before his eyes.

Lister knew he had to snap him out of it. "Oi, smeghead. Nothin' happened yet!"

"Oh, would you stop it, Listy?" Holo-Rimmer pushed himself up onto his elbows. "Real life isn't like those soppy romances you like to watch – there is never a happy end. There's always a death at the end."

"Ye're the one t' talk!"

Rimmer seemed to consider this for a moment. "Fair enough."

"This is my fault, isn't it?", nano-Rimmer announced suddenly.

"No, it smeggin' isn't," Lister snapped at the same time as the other Rimmer said: "Don't be an idiot. Of course it isn't. I knew it was the hologrammatic pistol."

None of them really noticed the tentative relief on Rimmer's face, too busy staring at each other. Lister wondered whether the hologram realised what he had just done, but from his slightly startled look, Rimmer did. Rimmer, who could never go easy on himself for anything, not for failing to meet his family's expectations, not for failing to pass his exams, for failing, period, not for killing the crew, had, in essence, just forgiven _himself_.

"'ow long?", Lister choked out.

The hologram shrugged. "A day, maybe. The _Wildfire_ is slowing it down a bit. But don't even think about throwing a farewell party."

Arnold had no idea what his alter ego was referring to, but from the sentimental smile on Lister's face, the space-bum did. It was sickening to watch, really. Reminiscing with Lister? Rimmer could have sworn he would never do that unless he got crying drunk first. And sharing an opinion? No smegging way! He disagreed with Lister out of principle alone. Just for a moment, he thought he was glad that he needed to leave to become Ace so he didn't have to watch this – but then it occurred to him that he wouldn't have to because when he became Ace, the other would be dead. Well, deader. "The two of you! It's disgusting."

"Jus' leave it, Rimmer."

The smeg he would, especially not after an invitation like that. "Have you picked a ring already? Last minute marriage, you've got to be ready."

"Drop it."

Rimmer looked at the hologram and wished he hadn't. Sometimes he really thought that the other one could look right through him and read his thoughts – which he probably could, in a way, since he was him. "Fine. I'm going to find Kryten. Maybe he'll care to fix my arm."

Lister watched him go, feeling just a bit sorry for the smeghead – he probably couldn't help responding to Ace in the same manner as holo-Rimmer had all those years ago.

"Well, Listy?"

"I don't know, man." Lister climbed up to his bunk, flopping down on his back so he wouldn't have to look at the sickly colour on Rimmer's face and could pretend that everything was perfectly normal. "It's you leaving to become Ace all over again."

"And?", Rimmer prompted.

"An' it's the decent thing to do and he can do it. An' I tell 'im t' do it if he asks me."

"Oh, for smeg's sake, Listy. Just spit it out already."

"I wasn't kiddin' around earlier, Rimmer. I did miss ye – I was so happy to see 'im when we got back to the _Dwarf_, an' I think I was goin' a bit crazy before."

"What are you saying, Lister?"  
>"I guess Holly was right. An' I don't know what'll happen when you're both gone. Because Kryten an' Cat are alright, but Cat's really only interest in suits, and Kryten's idea of fun is foldin' sheets. It drives me up the wall sometimes."<p>

"As I recall", Rimmer said slowly, almost petulantly, "I used to drive you up the wall constantly."

"I _asked _the other Rimmer to come with us. Got him stuck in a lot of smeg, but 'e wouldn't have come if we hadn't convinced him."

"Lister, if you're asking me to stay-"

"'s a bit pointless now. An' you were jus' gonna say no, because if you could you'd go back to bein' Ace."

Rimmer didn't reply, which Lister found a bit odd. "Rimmer?" He leant over the edge of his bunk, looking down at the hologram. Rimmer was still on his back, one arm stuck under his head, the other hand resting loosely on his midriff, not meeting his gaze. The position was achingly familiar, reminding Lister of Rimmer's days as a soft light hologram. For some reason, he'd never seen nano-Rimmer lounging about like that. "Look, I'm not goin' t' stop the other you. Ye don't have to worry about there bein' no new Ace. Smeg, probably shouldn't have told you all that. Jus' forget it, yeah?"

There was a subtle shift in Rimmer's expression, and he suddenly swung his legs over the edge of the bunk and sat up.

"What are ye doin'?"

"I'm just- I…" Rimmer looked lost for a moment. "The truth?"

"Yeah."

"We should go find Kryten because he might have a way of getting the bullet out."

"You smeghead! You let me bare my soul and all the time you knew you were goin' to survive?"

"You hardly 'bared your soul', Lister. And besides, it might not work. Hologrammatic bullets can't just be pulled out and that's it. They carry a virus which gets into the projection unit. That's why I'm not properly hard light."

Lister scrambled down from the bunk and pulled Rimmer to his feet. "Let's go."

It took Rimmer about a quarter of an hour to locate Kryten – and when he eventually did, he found the mechanoid in the last place he had thought to look. Kryten had been in the laundry room. He had taken off his head, but his body had still been happily ironing sheets.

Granted, Rimmer was not in the best of moods, but the sight irked him. Certainly the laundry room would have been the first place the Simulants would have come looking for a service mechanoid in – and therefore the last place Kryten should by all laws of reason have gone to hide? "And what do you think you are doing, you rubber-headed moron?"

"Oh, Mr Rimmer, sir!" Kryten's body stopped ironing and picked up his head again, screwing it in. For a moment, the mechanoid blinked dizzily, then refocused on Rimmer. "Whatever happened to your arm?"

"We've had a bit of a run-in with _Simulants_, in case you hadn't smegging noticed!"

"Are Mister Lister and Mister Ace all right?"

Rimmer bristled. "How do you know I'm not Ace?"

"I'm sorry, sir. Your arm is broken. You are obviously not a hologram."

_Oh._ Rimmer frowned darkly. "Well, come on! You're a _service _mechanoid! We need to go to the med-bay and fix my arm!"

In essence, fixing a broken bone was no great feat. Accidents happened on mining ships, and the medical bay had always been well-stocked. And Rimmer had made sure it still was when they had regained the _Dwarf_. Not that he really was prone to sickness, but having Lister for a bunkmate was a dangerous thing. It had gotten him into all sorts of trouble, and it usually was him who needed medical attention. Still, he had hated the med-bay with a passion. He didn't like being vulnerable and exposed to the prodding and examination of the staff, let alone the ogling of others. Now, of course, there were no others, nor was there any member of the staff who had hated him left.

Still, the med-bay wasn't empty when they arrived. Lister and the other Rimmer were already there.

Rimmer really didn't know why he was doing whatever the heck it was he was doing. He knew he really should tell Lister that there was no saving his life, even if they got the bullet out and the lightbee managed to cope with the residual damage of the torture inflicted on him by the Simulants. Even with the support from the _Wildfire_, who had already begun to withdraw from him, there was nothing that could be done against the guilt eating him up from the inside. He hadn't killed a Simulant, and ten trillion people had died, and then he had killed the Simulant, and his alter ego had shown up and they had all nearly died, and if they had failed even more dimensions would have been destroyed – and Rimmer really couldn't wrap his head around it, no matter how many times he turned it over in his mind.

No one in the entire universe had ever shown him mercy, had ever forgiven him for failing or even just left him alone. And despite it all, Rimmer had always hung on to the belief that showing mercy was good, even though he barely remembered how to do it after a lifetime of cruelty and fighting back in every way he could (which wasn't much). He didn't want to believe that an act of mercy, _his_ act of mercy, had killed so many people, and the refusal was killing him. But he couldn't just let it go, because, for one, that wasn't him, and for another, it wasn't right to forget. Just like he had never forgotten that it had all been his fault – the crew dying, them getting stuck in deep space with no chance of ever, ever returning home, his own death.

Actually, maybe there were people who had forgiven him. Who had come for him, again and again, even after he really smegged up. And now, he was lying to them.

The bullet had been his coward's way out. He was happy with the one day's notice, and he knew it would be precisely one day, because that was how the bullets had been designed. Twenty-four hours' notice – the one thing he had never had when he had died the first time. It was enough time to get his replacement on the way and not enough to panic about the fact that his existence was going to be terminated permanently. It would be a clean end, perfectly on time, perfectly predictable, a bit painful, but at least he knew what was coming.

There was no way to pin down a moral dilemma to a timetable, and that kind of death would be messy, chaotic as he spiralled into insanity, as his projection started failing bit by bit, his personality eroding with it. And yet, he had made his choice. It wasn't because it gave him slightly more time, which it definitely did – that really was only more time to rail at his fate. It was because for the first time in ten years he actually felt at home, and he didn't want that feeling to go away just yet. Maybe he could pretend for a bit, make them all believe that he would be fine, secretly switching places with the other Rimmer and when the time came just slink away to the Diesel decks and wait for his lightbee to give up the ghost. Because he had always known that this was how his life would end – not with a bang, but with a whimper. He hoped that eventually Lister would find the bee. He would piece it together and then do the right thing and jettison what was essentially his corpse into the lightbee-belt of previous Rimmers. Maybe then he could finally be part of something beautiful.

Rimmer felt a knot at the back of his throat and he swallow hard around it, pulling his knees up to curl in on himself on the uncomfortable med-bay bed. Oh, God, but the bullet hurt!

A feather light touch brushed his shoulder. "Rimmer?"

_Oh_. Rimmer had almost forgotten that Lister was still there. Refusing to leave even as they had discovered that Kryten was not already down here with his alter ego, nor had he already left again according to Holly. Rimmer had told Lister to go looking for the mechanoid, but the third technician hadn't budged, had sent Holly to look for him instead.

"Are you hangin' in there, man? Smeg, I'm sorry. What a day ye've had! You probably don't want to talk about it, but when you got back from wherever they took you on that Simulant ship – you looked like you'd broken. That should happen to no one, man, no one. Not even to the biggest smeghead I've ever known."

Rimmer shuddered, glad that he had his back to Lister so the scruffy Liverpudlian couldn't see his face. He wasn't entirely sure what would have been visible there.

"An' I've been horrible to ye all the way. Rimmer?" Lister walked around the bed, and Rimmer quickly snapped his face to an expression that was hopefully, probably, pure exhaustion. "Hey."

"I can't even see a wound."

Rimmer shook his head. "You wouldn't. Hologrammatic, remember?"

"Yer clothes, too?"

"Not really practical dragging around a wardrobe in the _Wildfire_."

"Suppose not. What happens if ye have sex?"

Rimmer actually managed to scrape together a smidge of anger and outrage. "That's none of your business, Listy."

"S'ppose not. What happens, though, if ye take them off? Do they jus' vanish, or…?"

"Can you drop it, Lister? Just for once? Really not in the mood right now."

"Sorry. Thought it'd cheer you up."

"Well it doesn't."

Lister fell silent for the moment, but Rimmer knew it couldn't last long. He closed his eyes, trying to let go of some of the tension. It wasn't easy, but the darkness behind his eyelids was strangely soothing. Better than the whiteout of before, at any rate.

"Rimmer?"

"Hm?"

"Ye're not goin' t' sleep, are ye?"

"Maybe."

Rimmer allowed himself to drift in the silence that followed, trying to listen to _Red Dwarf _rumble around him, ignoring the silence in the hyperlink and the crippling pain. Just as he thought he might actually be lulled to sleep by the familiar sounds of the ancient ship and Lister's breathing, Lister shifted his weight, bringing him out of it again.

"Don't ye dare not wakin' up again, smeghead. I don't think I'd be able to bear bein' alone again."

Rimmer remained still, feigning sleep. Lister had obviously thought he couldn't hear him. The Scouser had never been very good at telling, not even while Rimmer was still alive. After that business with the mushrooms, the first proper apology he'd gotten had actually been such a whispered confession into the darkness of their quarters at night. Rimmer didn't have many things he remembered fondly. Those few moments of unabashed honesty from his bunkmate were amongst them.

He thought he might actually have smiled a bit, but he quickly dropped the stupid grin when he heard two sets of footsteps and Kryten gushed: "Oh, good heavens! What happened to Mr Ace?"

"Rimmer?" Lister said softly, and Rimmer really wasn't sure which one of them he meant. So he just rolled over onto his back, propping himself up as best he could.

"Had a bit of a run-in with a hologrammatic bullet, Krytie. Anything you can do?" He wasn't exactly looking the part right now, but he might just as well play the role now that Kryten had referred to him as Ace.

"Oh!" Kryten looked horrified, the living Rimmer who had stepped in behind him completely forgotten. "Who would do such a thing! Holo-bullets are just cruel!" It was then that Kryten seemed to catch onto the pointed look Lister was giving him and cut his tirade short. He approached the med-bed, all professionalism. "Is switching you off temporarily an option, Mister Ace?"

"No," Rimmer replied, steadfast. It wasn't like the _Wildfire _couldn't reboot him if the others _happened to forget_, but he was not going to risk getting switched off now and never wake up again.

"I will need to run some tests."

"Hol's already done that, Kryts." Lister pointed the mechanoid towards a panel that was alight on the nearby wall, and Kryten hurried over, speedreading the information.

It took long enough for nano-Rimmer to hop up onto the next med-bed, his legs dangling. "What is this about?"

Rimmer looked at him and hoped and prayed that he wouldn't give the game away. "Getting rid of the bullet, Arn."

His alter ego got a curious look, but kept his mouth shut. Rimmer was extremely grateful – apparently, this Rimmer had already learned a lesson that took him two years of being Ace to really grasp (not that he had fully embraced it): that it was sometimes better to wait and see instead of jumping to the defensive immediately.

"There might be a way, Mister Ace, sir," Kryten announced then, stepping back to his bedside next to Lister. "I have a powerful antibody programme which should be able to fight of the bullet's viral effects. However, it will be necessary to reboot your programming to reassert the projection once the virus is gone."

That sounded fair enough. Rimmer nodded. "Go ahead, Kryts."

Kryten screwed off his middle finger, and extracted a small, flat capsule. The entire process looked obscene. "You need to attach this to your lightbee, sir."

"Can't you use a syringe or somethin'?" Lister asked, obviously aware of how much Rimmer disliked touching his lightbee. It was disgusting. Imagine touching your own innards – and that didn't even come close.

"It's okay, Skipper." Rimmer held his hand out for the small capsule, and looked at it. It felt slightly sticky, was probably magnetic, as well. But Rimmer would rather do this himself instead of facing a syringe in the hands of a rubber-tipped mechanoid. He sat up straight on the bed, concentrating on what he was going to do, took the little device firmly between his fingertips and reached into his midriff.

He felt the capsule latching on to the lightbee as he came close enough, and for a second, his mind went completely blank, wiped of thoughts, memories, personality, before it all whizzed back and Rimmer felt sick. He wasn't going to _be_ sick – after ten year of dimension jumping, it took more than that – but it still felt like he had some intrusion sticking inside his body, like a knife or an arrow, and he would have given much to get it out. That probably wouldn't have been the best move, though, and so he tightened his grip on whatever his hands were resting on just from keeping himself from reaching back inside his projection to remove the intrusion.

"Mr Ace, sir?"

Rimmer forced himself to focus on Kryten. As he did, he became aware of the fact that it was Lister's arm he was gripping, and he let go immediately. "It's working."

"What's goin' on, Kryters?"  
>"Remember the dove program I wrote to fight of the Simulant virus a few years ago, sir?"<p>

Lister nodded stupidly. "Yeah."

"The file we are transmitting into Mr Ace's lightbee does something similar. It removes the traces of the virus in the system and erects a firewall so the bullet will exhaust itself without causing further damage."

"Is it painful?", nano-Rimmer asked.

"No. It just feels as though someone was coating your heart in fluff."

Lister wrinkled his nose. Apparently, there were a few things that could still disgust the slob, surprisingly. "Eww."

"Don't worry, Mr Ace. The feeling will disappear once your projection reboots. You should lie down for this."

Rimmer shifted on the bed and lay down on his back, swallowing bile and gave the mental okay. He blinked off for a second, but was back again even before the lightbee hit the mattress. The sickening feeling was gone, and so was the pain. Rimmer still felt mildly sore where the bullet had originally hit, but the hologrammatic bruising would fade within the next day or so – he'd had worse.

"Ace?"

"Don't worry, Skipper. It worked. The bullet will not cause us any more trouble." Rimmer sat up, trying for Ace's nonchalance. He couldn't let the others even suspect that he was still feeling ill, was still dying. He couldn't even let Kryten run another scan – now that the damage the bullet had done was gone, the mechanoid would not miss the internal corruption. He had not missed the elevation of his T-count when he himself had not even known that the tachyon density around his lightbee was indicative of anything, and he certainly wouldn't miss the extreme fluctuations now. "Why don't you fix Arnie's arm, Kryters, while Dave and I pop down to the bay and check on the _Wildfire_, eh?"


	21. Becoming Ace

_XXI. Becoming Ace_

They made their way to the cargo bay in silence, Lister gnawing on one of his locks in thought while Rimmer tried to figure out how to go on. He needed to talk to his alter ego as soon as possible, but it would have looked strange if he'd hung around until the medical was finished. There was, after all, no reason why he would spend any further thought on his alter ego, now that he was perfectly able to continue as Ace – or at least pretending to be.

The _Wildfire _looked even better than when they had last seen her as they had confronted the Simulant, or maybe that was just because Rimmer's vision was back to normal. She had not been able to reattach the drivepots automatically, of course, but Lister could probably handle that. Otherwise, the self-repair programme had obviously been working on full tilt, nanobots welding tears together, restoring burnt out circuitry and fixing scrapes in the paintjob. When they climbed inside, the cockpit looked almost normal again. The front window was still reconstructing, but the broken screens had been fixed, the debris was gone and, perhaps most importantly, front and rear were firmly connected once more.

Rimmer ran his hand over the pilot chair without sitting down. He could feel the _Wildfire_'s internal aversion of which the AI probably wasn't even aware. It was a necessary subroutine, signifying that the flame had been passed on to a new Ace. Signalling the fact that he was dying.

"So, ye're leavin' again?"

Rimmer looked at Lister, who was standing in the door and obviously feeling even more uncomfortable than he did, by the look on the Scouser's face. "Yes," he answered, in his own voice. And technically, he was. If he was honest, he didn't buy for one second that Lister actually needed him. That smeg he had said about Rimmer keeping him sane and succeeding spectacularly, making him _First Officer_ during his "funeral" – as if Lister of all people had the right to make him an officer! – and about missing him had to have been made up, surely. There really was no way Lister actually had meant that. No, Rimmer had believed such stuff of him once, and he was not going to make that mistake again. Lister had the Cat and Kryten. He would be all right without him. "Look, it's going to be alright, Listy. I survived for ten years, I'll just get back to it."

"D'ye think ye'll come back?"

"Probably not."

Lister nodded, plucking at a loose strand on his jacket.

"It's part of who Ace is, really. We're supposed to go always forward. It's quite a coincidence that two of us stumbled back into this dimension after the original Ace."

"'s alright. Ye don't've t' explain. I know ye're lovin' it, bein' the hero. Ye've changed, man. It suits ye."

Yes, he had become an even more damaged and sad pile of smeg. "Technically, Lister, 'don't' and 'have' don't contract."

"Smeg off, Rimmer!"

Rimmer allowed himself a soft smile as he met Lister's gaze, and the Liverpudlian grinned. "Ye know what? We'll give ye a proper farewell this time. It didn't feel appropriate last time, ye know, what with the funeral, but we'll make it up with a party on the officer's deck. We'll even have proper booze now that we're back on the _Dwarf_. And Kryten's goin' to whip up a meal. Send ye off in style."

...

Rimmer had gone to the observation dome after Kryten had fixed up his arm. He needed to talk to his alter ego, and he was bound to show up there soon enough. He'd thought that the hologram had wanted the others to believe that the bullet had killed him and allow himself to take over as Ace, but now the smegger had gone and had the bullet removed, pretending everything would be fine. And even the _Wildfire _was repairing. It would be just typical of Rimmer's luck if Ace decided he wanted to jump and recruit his replacement in another dimension, just so Lister wouldn't have to watch him die. Why would he care, anyway?

Well, Rimmer wasn't going to let him. He was scared of becoming Ace, yes, but he was so scared that it didn't even register anymore. And he had really enjoyed being the hero. Getting rid of those simulants, and three of them at that, single-handedly? Way to go, Arnie J.! Besides, the _Wildfire_'s computer was breath-taking. Sure, she was just a bunch of pixels and algorithms, but, by God, what pixels! Besides, Rimmer couldn't remember anyone treating him with such tenderness and affection before. And then there was the fact that even if he died, he would be brought back as a hologram, and this was not like being an ephemeral ghost like the holograms of the JMC. This was a real body – composed of light, fair enough, but from what he'd heard, basically indestructible and technically, he could live forever. Traversing the universe and saving damsels, seeing things, real battles, real successes. No way would he just let that opportunity slip through his fingers now that he'd had a glimpse of what it was like.

When the hologram found him, Rimmer almost jumped out of his skin. He was facing an exact mirror image of himself, down to the shining boots and the old uniform. He'd known the hologram was himself, of course, but Ace's costume and the plethora of hologrammatic uniforms had always set him apart, even without the characteristic H. Not now, though. "Are you ready?", his alter ego asked.  
>"Ready?"<p>

"To become Ace. The _Wildfire _will be repaired in a couple of days, but we should make the changeover now, give you a couple of days to get used to the character and confuse the others into thinking you're me. You never know what the Cat can actually smell."

Rimmer was silent for a moment, looking out to the stars. He knew that the hologram was dying, properly and with no way back, but somehow his alter ego seemed more relaxed than he had ever seen him.

"You haven't changed your mind, have you?", the hologram asked.

"No. I thought _you_ had when you let Kryten remove the bullet."

The other looked slightly uncomfortable. "Yes, let's just drop that, shall we? You should come to the _Wildfire_, get changed and pick the things you would like to take with you. There isn't much space, but you're welcome to any of my stuff. It's not like I'll be needing it."

"I'll take the guns."

"I thought you might."

...

And so they swapped places. The hologrammatic Rimmer had the _Wildfire _load his lightbee with his alter ego's memories just as she had done with those of the previous Aces, and she made her first backup copy of the new Ace before feeding him as much information as an organic brain could take. After swapping costumes, the deception was perfect.

They went to Ace's send-off party side by side, and no one seemed to notice. With enough physical distance, it was impossible to tell a hard light hologram from a living being, and if the Cat's olfactory senses picked up anything strange, it was drowned out by the confusion he was obviously still feeling about Rimmer being Ace and vice-versa.

It was a fantastic party. Lister had pulled all punches as he had once for Kryten. Dinner was incredible, and after a bit of drink, the music began to sound not entirely bad. Both Rimmers got drunk, but they held back, pretending to be more out of it than they actually were. The hologrammatic body reacted to alcohol differently anyway, and the human Rimmer hadn't had anything to drink since they had poisoned themselves with hooch on Floor 13, so he was extra careful. There was no way they could give up the game, not when it was going so well.

Between them, they could still see that they were different. Nano-Rimmer could be more companionable with Lister because he was more in the habit, having lodged with the last human only recently while holo-Rimmer had been away – besides, no one thought it strange that 'Ace' was a bit more chummy with 'Skipper'. However, the better jokes were between holo-Rimmer and Lister. They had played off each other for what seemed like half a lifetime (and probably was), and in absence of others to prank, their banter had really been all they had had, especially considering the fact that half the time they couldn't even prank each other because Rimmer had been incorporeal. Still, in the general drunken confusion, no one noticed, and no one knew that it was holo-Rimmer who passed out sleeping on the table in his and Lister's quarters because the Cat had occupied his bunk – again – and nano-Rimmer who stumbled down to the bay to sleep inside the _Wildfire_.

They slept in on the next day. Ace wasn't in any rush, nor were they facing a deadline or a potentially life-threatening situation, other than perhaps a hangover. Lister, as always, recovered rather quickly, and started a jigsaw on the table while the Cat went to clear himself up, Kryten went to clear up the officer's lounge and Rimmer dozed on the bottom bunk. Hologrammatic hangovers were just as weird as being hologrammatically drunk – the feelings were all the same, but some aspects of his thought process remained perfectly clear because they were central to the functioning of a hologram. He could never blitz out completely, and if he needed to, he could get rid of the illusion of being drunk in a second, but he didn't really care to. This was probably the last time he got drunk, he might as well go through all the motions, including the blurry vision, slurred speech, sensitivity to light and noise, queasy feeling and headache. Besides, he was pretending to be alive, anyway.

Nano-Rimmer hadn't shown yet, but the booze had probably hit him a bit harder than his alter ego. He deserved to have a lie in – there wouldn't be much room for things like that once he got really started on dimension jumping.

"Rimmer?"

"Hm?"

"Did ye want t'become Ace?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Nah, man."

"Why would I want to become a git in a tinfoil suit and get myself shot?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought ye were enjoying flying an' gettin' rid of those simulants."

"Well, it's not going to happen, is it?"

"Come on, ye're not curious?"

Rimmer sighed, breathing out slowly. _This _felt natural. Not prancing around the universe pretending to be someone he wasn't. "Not one bit, Lister."

Lister was grinning towards the ceiling. "So ye'd rather be stuck with me, yeah?"

"Smeg off."

...

Rimmer woke up with the fuzzy feeling of alcohol buzzing in his veins and a slight headache pulsing behind his eyes, and for a moment, he had no idea where he was. Then, with a contend sigh, he relaxed back onto the _Wildfire_'s mattress. It was just _perfect_. Rimmer had always liked the ship issue mattresses of _Red Dwarf_; they were just as they should be – orderly, simple and militarily hard. But the _Wildfire_'s bed felt as though it had been made just for him, which it probably had, or at least a previous Ace had adapted it that way. Rimmer had no desire to sleep somewhere else ever again.

"Susan?"

"Good morning, Ace."

Oh, that felt glorious. Finally, finally someone referred to him with his chosen nickname and did not mean it as mockery. "You do have a bathroom, don't you?"

"Of course, Ace. And I can also provide breakfast." With that, she disappeared, and soft tunes of Reggie Wilson drifted through the speakers.

Rimmer stretched, enjoying the absence of Lister's snoring or creaking bedsprings, or the constant rumbling of engines that had been so deafeningly loud on Floor 13. "Marvellous."

The _Wildfire _was ready to fly within a week. No one had expected it to go quite that fast, and Rimmer-to-become-Ace was feeling increasingly nervous, but he was trying not to let it show. On the one hand, he couldn't, because that would give away the whole pretence, because why should he be nervous after spending ten years as Ace, and on the other hand, there was no way he would let the other Rimmer see. He had always been competitive, and most of all when it came to competing with himself. It didn't matter if he started to have doubts whether he could do this, there was no smegging way he would crawl to his alter ego and admit that he wanted to chicken out especially since he was enjoying having the _Wildfire_ to himself. No obnoxious brothers, no annoying crewmates, no _Lister_ to breathe down his neck. Just a drop-dead-gorgeous computer and the open sky ahead. It was Heaven.

The two Rimmers took the _Wildfire _on a spin to test her out when she claimed to be ready. Rimmer felt immediately at home with the controls, even though they were quite demanding and put a strain on his recently broken arm. There wasn't much he had to worry about, but it was the first time he was flying his own spaceship, or any spaceship, and the hologram had insisted on showing him the ropes. He had a point, really; from what Rimmer had gathered from the stories the _Wildfire _had told him, he could run into a situation where he might need to fly the ship immediately after his first jump. The only way they could do this, of course, was to pretend that 'Ace' wanted to try the _Wildfire _out to make sure she was really safe to fly and Rimmer coming along grudgingly because 'Ace' insisted and 'he' had, after all, admitted he liked flying with Lister present just a few days ago. Rimmer had to hand it to his hologrammatic counterpart – he was an excellent actor.

"It's a skill you acquire on the field," the hologram had said when Rimmer had quizzed him on it, and they had left it at that. They didn't really talk much, anymore. The hologram showed Rimmer what he needed to know, but mostly he just avoided him, because Rimmer was doing his best to be Ace, and it was getting visibly on the former Ace's pecks – which was ironic, in a way, but neither Rimmer cared to examine that issue too closely. The other members of the _Red Dwarf_ posse didn't seem to notice that anything strange was going on, and so they kept mostly apart.

The hologram remained very quiet during their test run, but Rimmer was enjoying himself immensely. He had the suspicion that being a passenger in a one man vessel wasn't exactly the most comfortable situation to be in, and perhaps the fact that he was dying was getting to his alter ego. Rimmer couldn't have cared less as he steered back into the _Red Dwarf _bay and managed a picture perfect landing.

Lister was waiting for them. "Well?"

"All good to go, Skipper!"

If Lister's smile was a bit shaky and the other Rimmer shouldered past them without so much as a glance or a word, no one said anything about it. And on the next day, Rimmer left.


	22. Saving Rimmer

_XXII. Saving Rimmer _

Seeing Ace off felt strange to Lister. He'd done it before, of course – twice, now, but the first time with this Rimmer had felt awkward and stifled. Lister had been trying not to crack up at Rimmer's obvious mistake and to give him a bit of confidence – after all, he had been the one to push him down that road, and he it was too late to back out. But he had been manipulating Rimmer for ages, and it came like a second nature to him, and if all he had to do was hug and smile and wish him luck, he could do that.

Not now, though. Now, Rimmer was almost burning with confidence, and everything Lister could think of to say had already been said. Besides, now there was a second Rimmer, who was trailing behind with a sneer on his lips that had barely shifted at all in the last days of Ace's presence on the _Dwarf _and had Lister wondering why Rimmer could never get along with his alter egos, especially considering that the two of them had seemed largely fine until the danger had passed and Ace had been fixed. He supposed it was just that they had reached the tipping point where they were starting to get on each other's nerves. It had been the same with the duplicate hologram back in the days – they had seemed fine until they were shouting putrid insults at each other through the bulkheads.

Ace dropped his pretence a bit as they said goodbye in the bay, but even Kryten and the Cat behaved themselves. Apparently, now that Rimmer had saved the day – as Ace, of course – they were more ready to look past the fact that this Ace had once been their Rimmer. It wasn't a long goodbye, because Rimmer didn't do goodbyes well, not even after being Ace for so long. It was also more than a little awkward because Ace and Rimmer stared at each other for what felt like a full minute without either of them saying a word until Rimmer folded his arms and rocked back on his heels with a derisive sneer. "Go on already."

Ace seemed to shake himself out of some kind of stupor, brushing back the strands of his wig. "Yes, I should. Goodbye, lads – smoke me a kipper and all that."

And then, just like that, he was gone. Lister went to watch him jump in the auxiliary drive room, just to make sure that the _Dwarf _rode out the shockwave okay, even though Holly insisted that he had everything under control. He had not expected to be joined by Rimmer, who flopped down in a chair and put his feet up onto the rim of one console, sighing deeply.

"Ah, that's better."

"I really don't understand yer attitude, Rimmer. Ye didn't seem to mind him when he first got 'ere. What happened, man?"

"Have you spent time with the tin-foiled gimboid? Have you seen the way he looks at me? Honestly, Lister, you can't expect me to _like _him, just because once upon a time he was me."

Lister shook his head and turned back to the monitor just in time to see the dimensional rift crack open and the _Wildfire _disappearing into it before the rift closed inside of a second, sending a ripple of electric disturbance through _Red Dwarf _and static electricity into the chair Lister was sitting in. He jumped to his feet. "Smeg!"

Being thus distracted, he never saw Rimmer flinch, or his body flickering as if it were a projection.

A day passed. And another. And another. Rimmer constantly expected the blow to fall, the corruption to finally catch up with him. He could have talked to Holly about it, because the computer knew, of course, but he really didn't care to. Holly was just an insensitive pile of scrap metal when it came down to it, and Rimmer didn't really care to be prodded and pocked until he blurted out his reasons. Instead, he suffered in silence.

He felt terrible, constantly exhausted, and it was quite a change to be around people again who expected him to eat and drink and even _socialise_ because he was supposed to be human and alive and should need those things. Really all he wanted to do was sleep. The separation from the _Wildfire_ had not been as big a blow as he had expected, and certainly not enough to finish him off, but he still felt as though he was going through withdrawal – not that Rimmer had the faintest idea what withdrawal felt like in the first place, but in his imagination, this was it. He felt empty and drained and yearning for something he couldn't get.

Half of him wanted it to finally end. He'd thought that maybe a decent quarrel with Lister would bring it down, and so he had needled the Scouser until he'd snapped, but it had done nothing. Quite the contrary – Rimmer had somehow _enjoyed_ it. Not the insults Lister eventually hurled at him after he had done his best to get on his nerves for the entire day, of course, but Lister had taken surprisingly long to actually shout at him, which was kind of a nice change, and Rimmer had enjoyed the banter between them up until that point. It felt witty and alive and sickeningly hopeful and illogical and not at all like the stifled conversations he had had with the _Wildfire_.

And then, on the fifth day, he couldn't summon up the energy to get out of bed. Maybe he had been wrong and his collapse wouldn't be in foamed-mouthed insanity. Maybe he would just get more tired by the day until he just… faded away. Rimmer had no illusions as to going somewhere after he died. He was pretty sure Silicon Heaven was not for holograms, and if there was such a thing as an afterlife for humans, his soul was probably already there – or this was it. His existence after death as a hologram had not been exactly paradise, but now that the end was near, he couldn't really say that he wanted to fight it. One, he had been prepared, and two, he was really too tired to do anything.

Lister found him on his bunk at four in the afternoon, having left early in the morning and without a word after their rather spiteful shouting match from the day before. Rimmer expected to be ignored, but instead a slight frown appeared on Lister's face as he sat down at the table. "Hey, Rimmer, Cat and I are going to grab some Chinese and go bowling. Wanna come?"

"Not particularly."

"I thought you enjoyed it last time."

Rimmer couldn't remember having been bowling with Lister before – after all, it was something he had no way of enjoying while soft-light and Starbug didn't have a bowling range. He supposed it must have been the other Rimmer, then. Ace, now. "Well, I am not in the mood."

"Are you okay? You seemed off for a day or two."

"I am fine, Listy."

"Maybe Kryten should check you out. We've opened a new storage crate – maybe ye're comin' down with somethin'."

"Look, you annoying mollusc, I am _fine_! All dandy! Tickety-boo!"

"'m not buyin' it, man. Something's up. The Cat's been on edge around ye, as well."

Rimmer hadn't noticed the inbred feline act different than normal, but he hadn't really been paying close attention. The fatigue was gnawing at him, and not even black coffee could get rid of it – and Rimmer had tried, even though he hated black coffee. "I can't help it when that glittery furball has something up his nostril."

"Is it somethin' Ace did? Why ye were so pissed at him before he left?"

"_Ace _didn't do anything," Rimmer said, and only then realised that maybe he had put a bit too much of an undue emphasis on 'Ace'. And, by God, he was not feeling smegging jealous.

"Fine. Ye could jus' cut the smeg, though, Rimmer. Ye don't wanna talk about it, that's fine. But if there's somethin' we should know, ye know, that could put the crew in danger-"

"Oh yes, because you have such a good track record with that, don't you, Lister?" Rimmer remembered vividly the time Lister had rigged the readouts and took the bazookoids for psychological reasons only because he 'didn't want to cause any panic'! That had gone smegging fantastic, hadn't it?!

"What are ye sayin' to me, Rimmer?"

Fair enough. Rimmer was past caring. He said up, facing Lister head on. "I am saying, you smegger, that you didn't tell us that _Starbug_ was running low on fuel for _weeks _until it was almost too late and we had _no choice _but to board a disintegrating Simulant ship because you didn't want to cause any panic! Talk about endangering the crew, matey!"

Lister looked flummoxed for a moment, then recovered himself. "Yeah, and we could have pulled it off it you hadn't run away instead of blasting that Simulants head off!"

"It worked, didn't it? You got out! And, in case you had forgotten, the bazookoids would have set off a shipquake!"

"Yeah, so ye jus' saved yer ass!"

Rimmer crossed his arms. "Well, I wasn't going to get caught in the centre of the blast zone, was I? Not with my T-count through the roof and a hologrammatic aneurysm just waiting to happen!"

"Ye're a coward, Rimmer."

"It was a reasonable strategic decision. You, on the other hand-"

"Hang on!" Lister was suddenly on his feet. "How do you even know about that? That was the other Rimmer."

"Yes. Very well thought out, Listy. Gold star!" He was being sarcastic, of course, but it felt good, dispelling a bit of the bone-deep tiredness that had settled over him, even though his lightbee was struggling with the strain. He had obviously just ruined their whole charade, but there was hope that the lightbee would give out before Lister could get around to understanding what he had told him, or at least before someone asked him why he had decided to stay.

Lister looked wary, keeping the door in his back. Smeg knew what he was expecting – Psirens? GELF? Simulants? Rimmer snorted. Right.

"When we were on Floor 13 an' Hollister forced us to play his basketball team – what did we do?"

Rimmer smirked. That had actually been quite a brilliant plan. They hadn't had much time to enjoy it, as he could gather from the other's memory, but, as far as pranks went, that one had been decidedly not bad. "Spiked their drinks."

"All right, which Rimmer are ye? Or what are ye? Holly!"

Holly popped up on the screen. "What's kicking, dudes?"

"Holly, run a scan of Rimmer."

"Everything all right, Arn?", Holly asked, looking at him.

Rimmer gave a nod. "Humour him, would you, Holly?"

Holly's eyes went out of focus for a moment, then they swivelled back to face Lister. "I can't find anything strange, Dave."

"So he's nano-Rimmer? Same as always?"

"I didn't say that," Holly shot back, almost defensively.

"So he isn't?"

"No, I am not, you gimboid!"

For a moment, Lister just stared at him dumbly. It was long enough for the fight to go out of Rimmer. The cat was out of the bag now, anyway. He hadn't exactly planned on telling Lister, or anyone, but now that the truth was out, it felt good.

"You swapped places?"

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "You figured it out. Congratulations."

"Why? The smeg, Rimmer! I thought ye liked bein' Ace! Why would you go back to this?"

"Will you just leave it the smeg alone? Ace is gone, and the better for him. It's not like you even smegging noticed the difference after we made the switch!"

"I don't understand ye, Rimmer. At all. All yer life – well, death – ye've been whining in my ear about how ye 'wanted to become an officer', climb the ranks and all that smeg, and then ye become the superhero savin' the universe an' all and go back to this?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Lister, _this_ is who I am, and I'd rather not spend my dying days in the that ridiculous getup and smegging role, thank you oh so much. Besides, it's not like there's no Ace out there. I didn't break the chain, I just passed on the flame. And he's probably going to be a better Ace than I ever was, anyway: He's got two lives to start with! So you can smeg of with your righteousness and leave me alone!"

Lister, to Rimmer's enormous surprise, didn't start firing insults at him. Instead, he looked almost flabbergasted. "Ye're dying'?"

"Yes, isn't it fan-smegging-tastic? You'll be rid of me soon enough, and for good, since you want me gone so badly."

Lister just shook his head. "Ye're an idiot, Rimmer." Then he turned on his heels and walked out.

Rimmer, all energy depleted, sank down again on his bunk. "Didn't that go well? No smegging place like home."

Holly cleared his throat. "Not wanting to interrupt anything here, Arn, but you're not dying."


	23. Red Dwarf

**_A/N:_**_ Here it finally is, the last chapter! Apologies again for the massive wait and the erratic update schedule overall - I hope you enjoyed this little fic nonetheless!_

* * *

><p><em>XXIII. <em>Red Dwarf

_Red Dwarf_'s engines were droning as obnoxiously as always, pipes clunking and bullheads groaning, but the old mining ship remained unerringly on its course. Besides, it wasn't like the occupants noticed – they had gotten roaring drunk in celebrating Rimmer's non-death. It was as good an occasion to celebrate as any, and the Cat certainly couldn't care less about the occasion. He's known that the Rimmers had switched places, of course – had smelled it out immediately, or so he claimed. Not that he cared, since it had nothing to do with him, or his suits. Kryten was still a little embarrassed of his response to the Rimmer-Ace situation, so he adamantly insisted on playing the barkeeper for the evening, churning out stupid jokes that eventually corroded into nonsense as the evening progressed, since Holly'd whipped him up a mechanoid cocktail (for which he couldn't quite remember the recipe, so he might have burned out a few of Kryten's circuits in the progress). Holly, for his part, was happily occupied with the music selection for the evening. It used up most of his RAM, anyway.

Lister and Rimmer, for their part, weren't even half as drunk as they could have been. They found that they didn't really need to be. The banter flowed easily between them, Rimmer throwing in an anecdote here and there about his escapades as Ace – always, naturally, talking about Ace in derisive tones, because he really was a smug git, even when he used to be Rimmer. He wished his counterpart the best of luck, of course, but he had no illusions that he'd gotten off easy. He's been Ace, and was still alive after it, which probably made him unique in the history of all Aces – and, if Rimmer was perfectly honest, he was just a little proud of that, too, even if there wasn't much else he could be proud of. It wasn't like his guilt was entirely gone, either. Quite the contrary, it still kept him awake, and would drive his T-count up or drain his mental energy when he dwelled on it, but it turned out that Kryten's dove program had not only erected a firewall around the corroding effects of the hologrammatic bullet, it had also targeted the continuing corruption of his lightbee. Instead of eating away at him, the guilt was now clawing at the wall, and it would keep doing that as long as the programme was active – which, according to Kryten, could theoretically be for the rest of Rimmer's existence. Also, it wasn't like there was anything stopping them from loading it again, if it didn't.

Lister hadn't had it in him to remain angry at Rimmer for making the switch. He wasn't one to hold a grudge by nature, and from the looks of things, nano-Rimmer had wanted to go off as Ace far more than Rimmer ever had, so he was happy for him. Besides, he had to admit that he'd never quite stopped missing holo-Rimmer: There were just too many memories between them that nano-Rimmer had never been able to share. And now, thanks to Rimmer's hologrammatic nature and downloaded memories, he could have both. It wasn't like Rimmer seemed to mind it, either.

They never dwelled on the question _why_ Rimmer had decided to remain behind, even in the belief that his days were numbered. Rimmer didn't care to address the topic, not even in his own head, and Lister really rather would have liked to avoid any discussion on why he was just a bit glad about Rimmer's decision.

They were still chuckling about a story or other by the time they'd settled back into their bunks, breathing into the roaring engine noise.

"You know, I don't think I've had this much fun in my entire life, Listy. Or death," Rimmer said, talking more to the roof of his bunk than to Lister.

Lister couldn't see Rimmer's face, nor did he particularly fancy looking down. It was Rimmer's soft and serious voice, and he knew better than to mess around. He also knew better than to try and lead conversations like this face to face with the smeghead. "Smeg off." But he didn't really mean it, and there was no bite behind the words.

The hologram shifted in his bunk, and Lister could hear the smile in his voice when he replied: "Good night, Listy."

"Night, smeghead."

And so, _Red Dwarf _continued on its journey back to Earth – not home, because if they were really honest with themselves, all of the crew really knew that _home _was right there.


End file.
